


Head Bitch in Charge (HBIC)

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys [30]
Category: Glee
Genre: Brothership, Gen, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-11
Updated: 2011-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-25 23:08:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The holidays are coming! The holidays are coming! Also, someone gets owned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Teaser

The night before had been quiet and a little frantic, in Kurt's opinion. They had taken a decided risk by tiptoeing in, unsure how deeply Rina was sleeping or if she was even asleep. No one had stirred, though, and he and Puck had made the most of the stolen time. The hard lines of their bodies had clashed until they maneuvered themselves around, and Kurt had taken Puck in his mouth while Puck had mirrored his actions.

This afternoon is the opposite, loud and slow. They're in Puck's bedroom again, but no one else is there, no need to swallow their words and sounds. Puck is pliable and relaxed in Kurt's arms, his hips rocking towards Kurt. Kurt grins and latches his mouth onto Puck's shoulder, careful to place it so that Puck's usual wardrobe choices can cover any mark he might leave.

Puck sighs contentedly and wraps his hand with Kurt's, resting their joined hands on the mattress in front of him. Kurt moves a little faster, thrusting deep inside Puck and pausing at his deepest before repeating the motion, again and again, and Kurt can't suppress the bit of smug pride that washes over him as Puck's hand tightens and his body coils in, just a little.

He knows his Puck, knows that he's about to come, slumping into the bed and against Kurt, and sometimes Kurt wants to go back in time and just laugh at himself. Because it's not about Puck breaking his fall, or catching him, and it never was. They're catching each other and falling together and Kurt muses that maybe part of him was right after all, just as the heat of Puck clenching around him sends them both over the edge, because this?

It's _glorious_.

 

Quinn’s not so sure what to think about what she’s been hearing. On the one hand, it’s just sort of exactly the kind of thing Rachel would do, obviously, so that makes Quinn want to believe it. It’s petty, but she would _like_ it to be true. On the other hand, Finn’s stupid, but he’s not _that_ stupid, to not notice that it was going on if it _were_ true. Honestly, Quinn doesn’t think any of them deserve to be happy, not with each other or anyone else. They’ve all stolen things from her.

That’s it exactly. They’re thieves. Her youth, her happiness, her popularity, even her body. They stole all of it. Everything she used to have, and now it’s gone. She’s tried so hard to make everything go back to normal, but her life is like her clothes -- nothing fits the same as it used to. It’s tight in the wrong places. Her wrecked, stretch-marked body is like a metaphor for her wrecked, messed-up life in Lima. And just like her body, she doesn’t too much to show for all the damage that’s been done to her life. Nothing tangible. Nothing she can hold on to.

She hasn’t told Robbie about any of that. The Quinn he met at Colorado College doesn’t have stretch marks from a baby she only held for a little over an hour. She wasn’t humiliated in front of the entire school when her boyfriend had to be ejected from prom for fighting over another girl. She hasn’t ever been forced to choose between glee and Cheerios and punished for whichever choice she makes. Robbie’s Quinn hasn’t had someone else chosen over her, time and time again.

Quinn likes Robbie’s Quinn. She wishes she could stay that Quinn all the time.

 

There are a lot of things–a _lot_ –that Hannah doesn’t agree with Stevie Evans about. Good movies, Lady Gaga, Coach Robb’s PE class, and whether or not their social studies class is stupid or just boring. Hannah and Stevie agree with each other on one thing, though, that no one else in their class agrees with. Big brothers? Are the best thing to have.

Rebecca doesn’t like her big brother, and no one else with a big brother likes theirs, either, but Hannah and Stevie have awesome big brothers. Maybe it’s because they’re so much older, is what their teacher said, and maybe she’s right. Hannah doesn’t care. She just knows that she and Stevie are right.

What she never says at school is that now she practically has _two_ big brothers. Kurt’s different from Noah, yeah, but he’s still cool, and Noah smiles at him all the time. Kurt talks to her about clothes and food, and Noah talks to her about math and sports, and they both talk to her about music (though _they_ don’t agree about Lady Gaga). They both do things for her, too, pretty much as soon as she asks. Noah pretends to complain but calls her ‘squirt,’ and Kurt just smiles and agrees with a “Miss Hannah” or “Lady Hannah” or even “Princess Hannah,” which makes her giggle.

Hannah knows how to make a smoothie, but she’s in the middle of a good book and Noah and Kurt are already in the kitchen, so she asks them if they can make strawberry smoothies.

“Do we have to, squirt?”

“Yes,” Hannah looks at them and smiles sweetly.

“Okay, okay,” Noah sighs exaggeratedly. “You think we can do it, K?”

“I suppose we can, but only because Lady Hannah asked so nicely,” Kurt nods.

There’s a lot of noise that Hannah mostly ignores, the freezer door and the refrigerator, things pouring and splashing. “Oh, hey, I forgot to mention the–”

A whirring noise interrupts Noah, and then a lot of splashing sounds coupled with a shriek that has to be Kurt and a loud gasp from Noah. “Oh. My. God.” Kurt says in a strangled tone when the splashing stops.

“–the lid has to be held on because it’s broken,” Noah finishes sheepishly, and Hannah looks up from her book to see them covered in strawberry smoothie.

She pulls her book up, hiding her mouth from view, and giggles.

“Pink really isn’t your color, baby,” Kurt remarks. Silence follows, though, and when Hannah looks over at them again, her brother’s got her almost-brother’s face cupped in his hands.

Really, Hannah doesn’t understand what’s so fascinating about kissing someone, to the point that they seem to do it at every opportunity, but Noah and Kurt apparently disagree with her, because it takes them awhile to finish cleaning themselves and the kitchen off, and even longer before she has a freshly-prepared strawberry smoothie in front of her.

Noah and Kurt dash off, muttering about being late, and Hannah just grins around her straw. Big brothers? The most awesome thing ever. Even if they do kiss a lot.


	2. Chemistry (a 3x14 bonus fic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Important skills; Doing the right thing; Pink is Dave's color.

The best part about staying after school to watch football practice, Casey thinks, is getting a chance to observe David in his natural habitat. The worst part is that it’s incredibly cold, and by the time David is done with practice, Casey has pretty much lost all the feeling in his nose, which he’s sure has gone bright red by this point, and he’s shivering so hard in his too-thin-for-this-weather coat that he’s afraid his butt is rattling the bleachers.

When Coach Beiste finally sends the players inside, Casey gathers up his bag and waves goodbye to the small group of players’ girlfriends and hopeful JV guys who sometimes come out to watch practices. He heads out to the parking lot and waits by David’s truck, not leaning on it, because that would be rude, but just standing near it, so it’s obvious that where he’s standing is intentional. So, maybe he overthinks it a little; it doesn’t _mean_ anything.

David appears a short while later, unlocking the doors while he’s still a good twenty feet away as he waves at Casey cheerfully. Casey waves back, and clambers gratefully up into the passenger seat of David’s truck. When David climbs into the front seat, he shakes his head. “Case, man, that coat’s too thin for a day like today!”

Casey shrugs. “It’s just the first one I grabbed. Didn’t pay too much attention, I guess.” Really, it’s the only coat that still fits him this winter. His wrists stick out two inches too far past the cuffs of his heavier coat, but he’ll just have to hang in there until Christmas at least. No money for stuff like new coats just because Casey grew more than expected.

David shakes his head again and starts the engine, turning the heat on high. “Ohh, that feels good. Coach let us wrap it earlier than I thought, but I think she expects us to hit the weight room during a free period tomorrow.”

Casey feels his cheeks getting warm and tells himself it’s from the air blasting out of the vent, not from the mental image of David lifting weights. “She’s a good coach, so it’s probably a good idea, if that’s what she wants you guys to do.”

“Yeah, and inside, too!” David grins. The drive to the library is short, and David expertly parallel parks before cutting off the engine.

“That’s impressive parking!” Casey exclaims. “I can’t believe you fit it in there. The truck! I meant the truck. Into the space!” He winces at the sound of his own voice and looks at David apologetically.

David chuckles a little, but not meanly. “My dad is _really_ an–obsessive about proper parallel parking. I had to pass the state driver’s test and _then_ his own personal test. When you get ready to take your test, let me know, I’ll show you a few tricks.”

Casey bites back a fit of the giggles at David’s quick mid-sentence correction, but gets himself composed quickly enough to say, “That would be really great, David. Thank you!”

“No problem.” David climbs out the truck and Casey does the same, closing the truck’s door very carefully behind himself. “You should take the test when you’re sixteen, even if you don’t have a car right away,” David continues. “I mean, you never know when you might need to drive legally, right?”

“I want to,” Casey says, trailing David through the library doors, and then lowering his voice. “I don’t know if my dad will let me, though. He, um. He isn’t sure it’s a good idea.”

“Yeah, I think you can manage to get a license without him having to know about it.” David frowns slightly. “I’ll look it up later or ask my dad or something.” They find an empty table near the back of the library and claim it, David spreading out his stuff over at least a third of the table.

“I don’t know,” Casey says, not wanting to argue with David, but also not wanting David to go to any trouble for something that’s probably not going to happen. “I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to try and get a license without his permission. I just, I think it would, he wouldn’t like it.” He pulls out his own school books and sets them neatly in a little stack.

David frowns. “Yeah, I know, but I hate the idea of anyone not learning this stuff, you know?” He shakes his head a little and changes the subject. “What are you bringing tomorrow for the party?”

The real answer to that question is ‘nothing, and hope nobody notices’ but Casey just says, “I’m not sure yet! I’ll figure it out tonight, I guess. Um, what about you?”

“I think I’m going to bring borscht. It’s not sweet or anything, but we need some food in there with the desserts, right?”

“That’s the pink soup, right?” Casey smiles at David, probably a little too broadly, but the image of David with a giant vat of pink soup is just so funny.

“I prefer ‘light red,’” David jokes.

“That’s so much manlier,” Casey agrees, giggling. “Very macho, manly light red soup. Not pink at all.”

“I could rock it if it _were_ pink, though.”

“It’s probably a really nice color on you,” Casey says. “Only, don’t spill it on you, because then nobody else would get to enjoy it. Well, except for in a visual sense. That might be nice, too.”

David laughs. “Yeah, I’ll do my best not to spill it, anyway.” He pauses. “So, I uh. Thought about, you know.”

“Soup?” Casey suggests, though the look on David’s face suggests something other than soup.

David laughs a little, though it seems kind of forced. “No, not soup. I mean, some people know, but I thought about just being honest tomorrow. At PFLAG.”

“Oh? _Oh!_ ” Casey’s mouth drops open and he feels his eyebrows shooting straight up. “Oh, wow, David. That’s, wow. Are you sure you’re ready?”

“No,” David admits. “But you know, is there ever a perfect time? And I sort of feel like if I don’t do it soon, ‘Tana will end up being right.”

Casey looks at David questioningly, but doesn’t ask. If David wants to tell him more, that’s David’s choice, but Casey isn’t going to pry. This kind of stuff is hard enough as it is, without people trying to steal all your secrets. “I don’t know if there’s a perfect time. I just kind of jumped in with both feet, and I don’t know if that was good or bad or what.”

“I think it’s bad not to, though, at some point,” David says, after a minute. “I mean, what Santana said, she was talking about those church guys and politicians that deny it for _years_ and end up getting caught in some scandal, devastating their families and kids and everything. And I don’t want to be twenty-eight or thirty-five or forty-something and still not have told anyone else, you know?”

“You told me,” Casey offers, softly. “You didn’t have to or anything, but you did. That’s something.”

“Yeah. ‘Cause I don’t want to not tell people. It’s just well.” David gestures around the room and then down at his sweats. “I know you know.”

Casey nods. “You’re not going to be that guy that Santana said, David. That guy, those guys, they don’t tell anybody at all. I don’t think they even say it out loud to themselves ever. I mean, here? It’s not like anybody has a _right_ to know that stuff about you or me or any of us, and I don’t know. I sometimes think maybe...maybe the guys who don’t tell people while they’re in high school, maybe they’re doing the right thing, too. There’s different right things for different people, right?”

David nods thoughtfully. “Yeah. Yeah. And high school’s not like the rest of the world, God knows. Thank God.” He chuckles. “I just don’t want to be anybody’s poster child, either, I don’t think. I mean, if I _do_ get a ride to Tech or somewhere, and I’m fully out, bam.”

“Well, there’s out and then there’s _out_ ,” Casey says, with a shrug to indicate that the difference is bigger than it sounds. “I mean, it didn’t end up being a big deal to tell everybody in PFLAG, for _me_ , anyway, but there’s people. Some people, I couldn’t _ever_ tell them. I can’t ever imagine being able to be _that_ kind of out, where just everybody, _everybody_ knows.” An involuntary shudder runs through him. “Maybe...just the people that matter the most first, and from there, you just let the people know that need to know.”

“I don’t know how Kurt does it,” David admits frankly. “I mean, I know some of his friends give him grief about having never been in the closet, and you know? That’s crap. I remember freshman year. Sure, some people suspected, but there were a lot of things that never got said to his face, and as soon as he came out?” David shakes his head, disgust plain on his face. Without really noticing he’s doing it, Casey slides his hand across the table and rests his fingertips on the back of David’s hand. “So, yeah, what he did, what he does every day, it takes a lot of guts. A lot of courage.”

“Kurt’s brave,” Casey says. “He’s _amazing_ , you know? To me, anyway. You know, he’s why I told everybody. About me. He was just so...like, hi, I’m Kurt and I’m gay, it’s part of life so move on and deal with it. And that was just. I never really had thought about it much before then, who I would tell and how, and I thought well, look how Kurt just says it.” Casey quirks a little half-smile at David. “So I just...you know, said it.”

David grins a little. “Yeah. Short and simple, right?”

“Totally simple. Simplest thing ever,” Casey nods vigorously and then changes to shaking his head after a few moments. “But if you think you’re ready and it’s what you want to do, you can do it. And it’ll be ok, you know?” He moves his thumb gently across the back of David’s hand. “And you’re going to be just fine.”

David nods. “Yeah. No turning back, right?”

“And hey, you’ll have somebody there who already knows to cheer you on!” Casey says. “Also, pink soup.”

David laughs. “You’re going to get us thrown out of the library!” he chokes out a moment later, still laughing.

“I can’t help it. I’m a miscreant,” Casey says, grinning. He looks down at where his hand is resting on top of David’s, and glancing quickly up at David before withdrawing his hand. “Sorry.”

David looks at him startled. “Hmm, what?” He cringes when he looks towards the librarian’s desk. “I guess we should actually work, huh?”

“Yeah, that would probably be a good idea,” Casey mumbles. “Can we start with this chemistry paper?”


	3. Episode 3x14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The holidays are coming! The holidays are coming! Also, someone gets owned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [playlist for this episode](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1F47EA465E0FFC2F)

“Ok, so I don’t get this whole latke thing, dude,” Finn says to Puck. “Like, it’s a pancake? But it’s potatoes?”

Puck gives Finn a look, rolling his eyes slightly. “It’s fried potatoes. What’s there to get?”

“Are they dessert or what? And what do potatoes have to do with...whatever it is that Hanukkah celebrates. Lights or whatever?”

“Oil. They’re fried in oil.”

“Why on earth would potatoes be a dessert?” Kurt interjects.

“Why would they eat potatoes in the desert? I mean, none of this makes sense,” Finn argues.

“Just read about it on Wikipedia or something, dude,” Puck says. “Eat the latkes, give her presents, and don’t accidentally blow out the menorah.”

“Oh shit, does that happen a lot?” Finn asks, looking worried. “I really don’t want to screw this up. It’s the first time I’ve celebrated Hanukkah with Rachel and I want to be good at it.”

“Don’t think of the menorah as a birthday cake and you should be fine.” Kurt shakes his head and leans against Puck. “I hardly think Leroy or Hiram are going to kick you out for not knowing something about Hanukkah.”

“It’s not Rachel’s dads I’m worried about,” Finn answers. “Rachel’s really serious about this stuff and I just want to get it right for her.”

“It’s really not a major holiday. It’s just that it’s one with presents.” Puck shrugs. “I don’t think she’s going to flip out because of something to do with it. I mean, you didn’t tell her you were secretly Jewish or something, did you?”

“No, I think she’d have figured that out,” Finn says. “She’s pretty smart. Anyway, I don’t think I could pull that off, even with a dumb girl.”

“No,” Puck agrees. “Probably not.” He curls his arm around Kurt and looks down. “I thought we were going to wait until tomorrow to be responsible.”

“I know,” Kurt sighs. “But I need to tell Ms. Pillsbury which classes by Tuesday.”

“What classes?” Finn looks panicked.

“Dual enrollment.” Kurt frowns at his laptop screen. “I’m trying to choose classes that will fulfill the gen ed requirements at Marymount, too.”

“I think I should drop the orchestration class and maybe take one of those piano classes,” Puck addresses Kurt. “I don’t think they want to see competency in an instrument if the instrument is acoustic guitar, not classical guitar.”

“Oh, ok,” Finn says, even though they’re not really listening to him. “Phew. I thought we had to sign up for some kind of class or something, like, at _school_.”

“Oh, yeah,” Puck looks up at Finn. “There’s no way I can write anything for Regionals, dude.”

Finn knits his eyebrows together for a moment and seems to be deep in thought. Finally, he nods. “Yeah, yeah that’s fair enough,” Finn says. “You’ve got a lot of other stuff to deal with right now and you probably don’t have the time for that. We’ll save it for Nationals, ok?” He grins at Puck. “You’re our secret weapon.”

“I told you I could be a ninja.”

“Of course you can,” Kurt assures him, almost absently.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Finn agrees. “Totally. Anyway, we should start think about the Regionals set list, especially if we’re going to have to pick three already-written songs.”

“I’ll hook the laptop up to the TV in a few minutes,” Kurt promises. “So we can watch ourselves at least.”

“But we don’t have the white board here!” Finn exclaims. “How will we make notes?” He tries not to crack a smile, but fails miserably.

“He’s gone off the deep end,” Kurt intones sadly. “I’ll have to let Dad and Carole know it’s time to commit him after all.”

“Where’s my vest?” Finn wails.

“Quick, K. Get some hair stuff and we’ll make him really look like Schue.”

“Too far, dude,” Finn says, eyeing Puck suspiciously. “That’s just...too far. Uncool. Don’t touch my hair. It’s perfect how it is.”

“Strangely, that wasn’t the adjective I was going to use.” Kurt sighs. “Everyone will be here soon. I should move.” Instead, he puts the laptop on the coffee table and leans back on Puck, his head more or less in Puck’s lap. “I don’t want to.”

“Well, you can be lazy until they get here,” Finn concedes. “But only until they get here and then you have to help us analyze our performances.”

“I’m not lazy, I’m just comfortable.” Puck grins down at Kurt and runs his fingers through Kurt’s hair. “Careful,” Kurt admonishes.

“Perfect hair runs in the family,” Finn says to Puck, as though he’s explaining a very obvious bit of information.

Puck snorts and opens his mouth to retort when there’s a rapid tapping on the door. “Ten bucks that’s Rachel,” Kurt says, not making any effort to move.

Finn goes to the door and sure enough, it is Rachel. She springs at Finn and almost knocks him back into the wall with her exuberant hug. “Hello to you, too!” Finn says.

“Hi!” Rachel grins widely as she follows him back into the living room. “Hello, Noah, Kurt. I’m still so excited about yesterday!” She frowns just a bit for a second. “Tired, Kurt?”

“Comfortable,” he contradicts her. “Maybe Brittany and Santana will show up next so I don’t have to move yet.”

“So, how’d they find out, anyway?” Finn asks as he sits in the recliner and pulls Rachel into his lap.

Puck shrugs. “I think Britt’s known for awhile.”

“Same with Santana,” Kurt adds. “Brittany never said anything explicit until Friday night, but she keeps talking about some kind of game.”

“Friday night?” Rachel asks.

Kurt turns his head towards her. “I told your dad that I was very bad.”

“ _Dude_ ,” Finn snorts. “Not in the same _room_ as all of us!”

“You were asleep,” Puck comments. “Except Brittany woke up for a few minutes.”

Finn just shakes his head. “Uncool.”

“Party pooper,” Kurt sniffs. There’s another knock on the door, and Rachel pops up to look out the window.

“Not Brittany and Santana, boys.”

“Damn.” Kurt heaves a sigh and sits up, then picks up his laptop and walks towards the TV. “Rachel, will you get the door?”

“Sure.” Rachel leaves the room briefly and returns with Mercedes and Sam in tow.

“Hey, guys,” Sam raises his hand and drops onto the floor near the recliner, Mercedes doing the same as she talks to Rachel. “Why are we meeting today again?”

“Apparently we’re studying our performances and starting on our set list for Regionals,” Puck offers. “I think Finn’s new motto is ‘no time like the present.’”

“Oh, good, we have a suggestion for Regionals,” Mercedes says, and Sam nods his agreement as another knock comes at the door. Puck wonders if it wouldn’t be easier to just put up a sign that says ‘Come In.’

“Set list suggestion?” Finn asks, perking up at the thought.

“Yeah, just a thought, but it seems like it’d worked,” Sam expands as Kurt goes to let the rest of the club in as a group. They scatter around the room, claiming seats and patches of floor, and somehow, Kurt ends up right back where he started, next to Puck, which is impressive.

“What now, sir dictator sir?” Puck calls out over the chatter.

Finn rolls his eyes. “Well, I know we want to analyze our performance, but I’d like to hear what Sam and Mercedes came up with for Regionals,” Finn says. “It’s not too early to start rolling it around in our heads, at least, listening to the song if we aren’t familiar with it, maybe thinking about breaking it down into segments.”

“It wasn’t really us,” Mercedes says. “Artie, you liked it, too, right?”

“It’s definitely not a typical show choir song,” Artie answers, “or even typical for us, but I think it works.”

“So Friday night,” Sam explains, looking at Santana, Brittany, Quinn, then Mike and Tina in turn, “while we were headed to Rachel’s house, those two,” and now he points towards Puck and Kurt, and Puck blinks, startled, “were singing that OneRepublic song, Marchin’ On, and we were like–I don’t know, I think it just _works_ for us.”

Finn’s brows come together and he tips his head thoughtfully. “The ‘we’re marchin’ on, we’re marchin’ on’ one?” Finn asks, singing the small snippet of the chorus. “Yeah,” he nods. “Yeah, that could work.” He starts looking around the room at the various glee members, like he’s already trying to figure out who should sing it.

“My boy nailed that harmonizing line,” Mercedes says with a grin.

“You said Puck and Kurt were singing it?” Finn asks. “I like the idea of a non-traditional duet like that, and I’ve heard the two of them singing together in the car and at home. It works.”

“I don’t think I know the song,” Mike says almost apologetically. “Are we talking extensive choreography, moderate, or very little?”

“Moderate?” Kurt offers.

“Kurt, you got it on your iPhone?”

Kurt nods and brings it up, turning up the volume all the way and letting it play through. Finn looks all excited, like a kid at a birthday party, and even sings along a little with the first verse, quietly enough to not be a distraction.

When the song finishes, Santana cracks a grin. “Maybe Huey, Dewey, and Louie should all three sing it.”

“They do have very complementary voices,” Rachel agrees.

“Yeah, I can see some basic stuff here,” Mike agrees. “And on parts where not all of us are singing, there could be more choreography in the background, sort of.”

“Hey, I didn’t want to butt in on Puck and Kurt,” Finn protests. “I just like the song. I think the two of them should get to do it. I mean, duets are kind of our standard, right?”

“We live in Ohio,” Kurt points out, a little quietly. “Three boys is a buddy movie. Two boys?”

“Buddy cop movies usually only have two cops, dude,” Finn says.

“Or one cop and a dog, but we’re not going to go there,” Puck interjects. “I hate to say it, but Kurt’s kinda got a point. We’re already–well, sort of...” he gestures around the room.

“Awesome?” Finn asks.

“We are awesome,” Brittany agrees. “But you should sing, too. Two guys can’t be three ducks all by themselves. Even if they’re gay ducks.” She looks at Kurt apologetically.

“I often split into two people,” he shrugs, gesturing airily. “I’m really both here and on a Caribbean island at the same time.”

“And you didn’t take us with you?” Tina protests with a grin.

“Next time, I promise.”

“Kurt’s right,” Quinn says, quietly and without any particular tone. “Three guys singing together will probably play better in Ohio than two.”

“It’s little wonder that most of us can’t wait to leave,” Mercedes snorts.

“Let’s put that on the table for consideration, then,” Finn says, trying to pull them back to focus. “We’ll talk about it more after we watch our performance. Good suggestion, guys!”

“Thank you,” Mercedes beams.

Kurt starts the video playing on the TV, then, all three of their songs queued in order to watch, and the room is oddly hushed as they all pay rapt attention to the recordings. Finn gets the same look on his face he always gets when he watches videos of Rachel’s performances, sort of dopey and dreamy. He puts an arm around her shoulders, and she snuggles against his side.

They watch the whole set straight through and then Finn suggests going back through and watching each number before they analyze it, so Kurt restarts “Willing & Wonderful” again. “I think that went really well,” Mike says. “And with such excellent choreography.” He grins.

“Better choreography than average, for sure,” Finn says. “It’s not just the two of us running past each other back and forth across the stage.”

“New Directions: The Track Team edition,” Puck snorts.

“You guys did a great job with the song,” Sam says admiringly. “Seriously. Are we going to do another original song for Regionals?”

“I think that with all the auditions and everything that some of these guys,” Finn gestures roughly in Puck’s direction, but doesn’t single him out, “have coming up, it’s too much to expect us to be able to do.”

“That makes sense,” Sam nods. “Cool.”

“Let’s watch the next song,” Tina pipes up. “I want to see my solo again.”

“Okay,” Kurt grins at her and restarts the video.

“Puck sounds just like the guy in the movie,” Brittany breathes, draping herself across Santana.

“Thanks,” Puck says, a little disbelievingly.

“I’m so glad we didn’t let Schue make me sing that!” Quinn says, with a nervous titter. “It would have been awful.”

“We’ll find good solos for everyone before the year’s out, though,” Kurt interjects, though he’s looking more at Santana than Quinn as he says it.

“Next song!” Mercedes calls. “Let’s live it up!”

“Smash it!” Artie shouts.

“L’chaim,” Kurt says dryly, and presses play.

“Now that? _That_ was kick-ass choreography,” Santana says, voice laden with approval, as the song comes to an end. “We need another number like that.”

“Mike? Brittany?” Finn addresses them. “You’re our choreographers-in-chief. You have any ideas for another awesome dance number like that?”

“I might have been thinking about it,” Mike admits, then looks over at Brittany. “We can talk it over and go over some ideas on Tuesday?”

Finn beams at them, then motions to Kurt to shut his laptop. “So what did we see here?” Finn asks.

“Wait,” Artie interjects. “Can we watch at least the Warblers’? I don’t really care about the hooker songs, but I was surprised that the Warblers took third.”

“‘Cause they’re creepy-ass stalkers?” Finn mumbles under his breath, just loud enough for Puck to hear him. “Does anybody else have a burning desire to watch the Warblers?” he sighs.

“No,” Kurt shudders. “That was disturbing enough one time.”

“What do you mean?” Sam frowns.

“Blaine sent Trey to tell me to _special attention_ to the set list,” Kurt says, tone a little brittle. “It was apparently chosen to... what did they say?”

“Convey support,” Puck growls out.

“Support for what?” Mercedes asks, frowning.

Kurt shoots Finn a glance and doesn’t answer immediately. “For Kurt apparently pining away over Shorty McShorterbrows and their dramatical breakup of the century, obviously,” Finn snorts.

“That does put their performance in a new, albeit disturbing, light,” Mike says slowly.

“Hence the creepy stalker set list,” Finn adds. “And hence me not really wanting to watch it again, though I’ll suck it up if everyone else wants to...as long as it doesn’t piss Kurt off too much, because you guys aren’t the ones who have to go home and deal with him after.”

“I could perform in lieu of the Warblers,” Kurt says, amused. “Did you know there’s a Beyonce song for this?”

Puck eyes Kurt carefully. “Oh?”

“Do tell,” Mercedes grins. “All in favor of Kurt’s performance instead?” She raises her hand, and most of the room follows her lead, the rest merely looking amused. “Go on, boo.”

“Well, then,” Kurt almost purrs, pulling up a song on his phone and standing up. As the lyrics start, Kurt grabs a empty beer bottle that Burt must’ve left earlier in the day. Finn furiously punches buttons on his iPhone then holds it up, clearly filming Kurt’s performance.

 _There was a time  
I thought, that you did everything right  
No lies, no wrong  
Boy I, must've been outta my mind  
So when I think of the time that I almost loved you  
You showed your ass and I, I saw the real you_

He shimmies a little, getting into it.

 _Thank God you blew it  
Thank God I dodged the bullet  
I'm so over you  
So baby good lookin' out_

"Sing it!" Mercedes calls, and all the girls are clapping and grinning.

 _Oh I bet it sucks to be you right now  
So sad, you're hurt  
Boo hoo, oh, did you expect me to care?  
You don't deserve my tears  
I guess that's why they ain't there  
When I think that there was a time that I almost loved you  
You showed your ass and baby yes I saw the real you_

Tina and Mike are holding on to each other, giggling and grinning as they watch Kurt.

 _I know you want me back  
It's time to face the facts  
That I'm the one that's got away  
Lord knows that it would take another place, another time, another world, another life  
Thank God I found the good in goodbye_

As the song ends, Kurt bows deeply. Finn whoops, then cringes a little as he seems to realize he hasn’t stopped recording. Puck nudges him once he hits stop. “What’re you going to do with that?”

“Facebook?” Finn shrugs, then lowers his voice. “I just want to make sure that creepy-ass creeper sees it.”

“Post it to the Warbler fan page, if they have one,” Puck snorts before catching himself about to throw an arm around Kurt as he sits back down. Finn seems to notice the aborted hug, and pulls Kurt down in between himself and Puck, flinging an arm around his brother and lifting an eyebrow at Puck to indicate he’s to do the same. Puck does so, and Kurt settles back into their combined arms. If Kurt’s weight is shifted more towards Puck than Finn, well, that’s probably not noticable.

“Clearly, when in doubt, Kurt should do Beyonce,” Santana grins at him. “Right?”

“Agreed,” Quinn says. She smiles at Kurt.

“This... isn’t the first time?” Sam asks uncertainly.

Mercedes grins. “Oh, do I have a video to show you sometime.”

“Ok!” Finn says, cutting in. “Let’s get back to our performances. Kurt, that was awesome, thank you, but no more fabulous singing and dancing until we’re done here, ok?”

“God forbid we sing and dance in show choir.” Kurt grins at Finn as he speaks.

Finn ignores Kurt, already talking about their performances, “I think that the duet might have been stronger if we’d incorporated the whole club for backing vocals,” he’s saying to Rachel, who nods rapidly. “I mean, let’s face it. We sound good together, but I don’t have your kind of power. Other voices behind me would have made it a little more balanced, I think.”

“What if all of our songs were group numbers? We could have featured soloists, sure, but maybe we should look at all of them more like ‘Seasons of Love’ or ‘I Gotta Feeling.’” Puck tosses the idea out, then waits to see what the reaction is.

Finn nods, but looks at Rachel for a response before he answers. Rachel seems to be considering the idea before tentatively nodding, a surprised look on her face, as if she can’t believe she’s agreeing with it.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Finn says. “We have some amazing voices and we’ve always got someone we can rely on for a solo or a duet, but...I mean, isn’t that one of things about Vocal Adrenaline that we think sucks? Their whole ‘make everything revolve around one voice’ thing?” This earns him several nods from the group, so he continues. “I mean, I think that if we’re gonna make this a one voice glee club, it oughta be a _group_ voice, if that makes any sense.”

“Part of the reason I liked ‘Marchin’ On’ was because it seemed to really say something about us as a group,” Sam says. “I mean, we keep marching on, right?” He grins. “So... maybe we need to pick songs that sort of speak for our group voice.”

“I like that,” Tina nods. “We’re all pretty different at times, but we have enough in common that we can say we do have a group voice, I think.”

Finn nods. “I think we definitely do. It’s like, we sound so good all together, but we also have to way to spotlight everybody’s voice without make it sound like we’re--what was it you called it, Kurt?--Blaine and the Pips?”

“Yes.” Kurt’s smirk is small but definitely there. “Our whole is greater than the sum of our parts.”

“The parts are good, too,” Brittany says, giving Santana an uncharacteristically naughtly little smile. Puck preemptively flicks the back of Finn’s head, just in case.

“Ouch!” Finn yelps. “What was that for? I didn’t say anything about legs, even!”

“Thank you for saving me the trouble,” Kurt smiles at Puck. “And now you have, Finn.”

“Only because Puck flicked me in the head!”

“Would the members of Destiny’s Child over there stop flicking each other and pay attention?” Mercedes asks.

“They started it!” Finn protests. “And, _hey_! Just because Kurt makes a great Beyonce...”

She shrugs and grins. “You knew I was talking about you, didn’t you?”

“Well, we were the only ones flicking,” Finn sputters, turning beet red and glaring at Mercedes, who just keeping grinning as the others start trying not to laugh. Puck’s biting his lip and Kurt’s dimples are showing behind the hand he has over his mouth.

“Okay, okay,” Tina gasps out past her giggles. “Seriously. Any other ideas for songs?” No one speaks, and there are a few people shaking their heads.

“Does that mean we can eat now?” Puck smirks and looks at Finn. “I mean, does that mean we can eat now, sir dictator sir?”

“They can eat,” Finn sulks. “You can sit in the corner until you think you can keep your hands to yourself.” He sticks his tongue out at Puck. “Come on, Kurt. Puck needs to think about his actions.”

“I’ll just have to find a different snack,” Puck sighs deeply as the others move out of the room and into the kitchen.

“But, Finn,” Kurt says very quietly, waiting until Rachel is the only other person in the room besides the three of them. “I _like_ it when Puck doesn’t keep his hands to himself.”

“ _Gawd_ ,” Finn groans. “Fine. Rach, let’s go eat. These two can have a time out together.”

“Can we have it upstairs?” Puck asks with his best innocent smile.

“No. You can have it some place _not here_ ,” Finn says, dragging Rachel out of of the room. “Behave!”

 

Kurt walks back in the house and swings by the kitchen, poking through the cabinet until he finds the container with four slices of gingerbread that he’d hidden before the rest of the glee club arrived. Mission accomplished, he grabs two bottles of water and heads up the stairs, poking his head into the living room to tell his dad and Carole good night first. He stops in front of Finn’s partially-closed door and nudges it open with his foot. “Catch.”

Finn’s hand shoots up and snatches the bottle out of the air. “Thanks, man. Something up?”

“I saved some of the gingerbread ahead of time,” Kurt lifts the container up. “Otherwise they would have devoured it all.”

“Uh oh, now I know something’s up!” Finn says, but he grabs a couple of pieces of gingerbread anyway.

“Why must people always assume I have ulterior motives?” Kurt sighs, sitting down. “And before you ask, yes, I was trying to make sure Dad didn’t get any.”

“Poor Burt,” Finn says, shaking his head. “It’s the holidays, dude. You should lighten up on him a little.”

“I would if I didn’t know he cheats every time I’m not looking,” Kurt sighs. “I mean, honestly, Finn. How many times have you seen him order a bacon double cheeseburger when I’m not with him? I bet it’s more than ten.”

“He’s a grownup,” Finn shrugs. “I know he’s your dad and you want him to be healthy, but you can’t life his life for him. Come September, you’re not gonna be here and he’s gonna have to manage to eat on his own.”

“I know that,” Kurt says quietly. “That’s why I’m trying to do what I can while I can.”

“Mom won’t let him eat himself into another heart attack,” Finn says. “I promise. She’ll probably come down a lot harder on him once we’re gone. I think she’s just trying to let him... you know. Not have to stress about everything at once.”

“I hope so.” Kurt frowns and takes a huge bite of gingerbread.

“He’s gonna be _fine_ ,” Finn mumbles around a mouth of gingerbread. “Everybody’s gonna be just fine. Well, except for me, all alone in Wisconsin, if I get in, of course.”

“You’re going to get in. Haven’t you noticed–oh, I guess you wouldn’t have. Beiste has this strange proud look in her eye with all three of you, the last two games.”

Finn shrugs. “She’s always proud of us. She’s a great coach and we’re kicking ass for her.”

“I don’t know.” Kurt shrugs. “It just seemed different, somehow.”

“I’m not gonna let myself get my hopes up,” Finn says, softly. “That way, I’m not disappointed if it doesn’t happen, ok?”

“Fine, I’ll get my hopes up for you and just not tell you about it.” Kurt sticks his tongue out at Finn mock-petulantly.

“Fine,” Finn answers, sticking his tongue out at Kurt. “I’ll be twelve if you’ll be twelve.”

“I was a twelve year old full of class and wit beyond my years, I’ll have you know.”

“Not me. Fart jokes and trying to look at the girls’ bra straps,” Finn says, proudly.

“I’m sure you were a joy,” Kurt says dryly. “I’m suddenly even more relieved we went to different middle schools.”

“Hey, I was awesome!”

“I’ll have to dig through Puck’s room and find his yearbooks from middle school.”

“You can look at my cool hair,” Finn says. “It was pretty sweet. I’ve thought about growing it out again, but then I remember that time we wore the wigs in glee, and, well.” He makes a disgusted face.

“Was it, in fact, in need of hair product?”

“No, it was long and flowing, like a rock star.”

“Oh, dear.” Kurt bites his lower lip, trying to picture it and then trying not to laugh. “I am definitely going to find that.”

“I was cute. All the girls said so.”

“Ah, the girls of Lima North. An esteemed group of judges, I am sure.” Kurt grins.

“They were classy ladies,” Finn says, wiggling his eyebrows at Kurt. “I think I kissed about half of them behind the gym. Not all at the same time.”

Kurt bursts into laughter. “Now _that_ would have been impressive, Finn. You know I went to elementary and middle school with Brittany? Let’s just say her perfect record started before high school.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Finn asks, rolling his eyes. “Thank god for Britt. Makes me feel like I’ve got it together.”

“Bless her,” Kurt shakes his head. “And then there’s her oddly insightful truths.”

“What’s this thing she keeps talking about, that you and Puck are winning some kind of game?”

Kurt makes a face. “I have no idea, but she said something about her and Santana _not_ being good at the game.”

“Uh...maybe I don’t wanna know what kind of game it is,” Finn says, shaking his head. “‘cause when I start asking about legs, I get flicked on the head.”

“Puck was just trying to help you maintain focus as our leader.”

“Mmhmm,” Finn says, rubbing the back of his head in memory. “So, I know we didn’t talk about it. And we don’t have to talk about it, but...”

“Meh,” Kurt says, circling his wrist in a strange sort of shrug. “It was very uncomfortable. I know I literally walked out of his life, but I didn’t anticipate this sort of reaction, so many months later.”

“Breakups happen. We’re in high school,” Finn responds. “He shouldn’t have expected that it was gonna last forever just because he wanted it to.”

“More to the point, he should have gotten over it at some point before now.”

“Yeah, it’s been kind of a long time,” Finn says, his face twisting in contemplation or confusion. The expressions are similar enough that it can be difficult to discern which is which. “Maybe he really is just some kind of psycho. What did he say when you guys broke up?”

“Well.” Kurt stalls for a second. “I didn’t really give him a chance to say anything. We were eating, and he told me that we weren’t going to Pride, because it was so queer. So I told him we were done, and I put a twenty on the table to cover my meal, and... left. I literally walked away from him.”

“And that’s it?” Finn asks, a look of disbelief on his face. “Just like that? I mean, after all the yelling and screaming, I kinda thought, you know, huge blow up or something.”

“I think I was just so tired of it by then. I kept trying to make it work because, well, who else was I going to date, right?” He smiles wryly. “And I truly did care for him as a friend. _Did_ , past tense. I don’t know, I didn’t want to give him a chance to yell in public.”

“And then you started dating Puck and didn’t notice for, like, months,” Finn says, grinning. “So, that worked out ok. I’m sorry your ex went all psychotic on you, though. Seriously, I’ve been checking all the closets for, like, bunnies and stuff.”

“It must be bunnies!” Kurt grins. “You know, if you go with _your_ theory of how long Puck and I have been dating, it was even before June.”

“So, were you ninja dating Puck at the same time you were with Blaine?” Finn muses. “‘cause for some reason, I really like that idea.”

“Technically, then, yes,” Kurt laughs. “And Puck would’ve been cheating on Lauren, too.”

“Ooh, you’re big gay cheaters,” Finn says. “Big gay ninja cheaters.”

“I think I’ll refrain from posting that on the internet or similar, though.”

“I was gonna go back and add that as the caption to your video, dude.”

“What video?” Kurt asks suspiciously.

“Your Beyonce performance,” Finn says, looking at Kurt like he’s lost his mind. “I recorded it. You haven’t been on Facebook tonight yet?”

“I came in here after I got back from taking Puck home, so no.” Kurt shakes his head and laughs. “Did you post it on the Warbler Fan Appreciation page?”

“Nah,” Finn shakes his head. “I’m not that douchey. I just had Rachel tag Blaine on it. Fat Warbler was pretty pissy, but I blocked his ass, so now he can’t say anything else.”

“Oh, dear, what did he say?” Kurt is terribly amused.

“Just ‘how dare you!’ Only with lots of exclamation points.”

“Trey insists he’s straight, but you have to wonder, what with how he idolizes Blaine.”

“Maybe they’ve just got a bad bromance,” Finn says. “Though, I mean, I can think of some other guys who used to insist they were straight, too. Maybe Trey’s just got a really freaking huge closet.”

“Metaphorically? Who knows. Literally? No doubt. Finn, _my Nav_ was considered ‘old’ and ‘not that impressive’ by their standards.”

“Your Nav is like a castle on wheels. Those guys? Douchebags.”

“Not _all_ of them. Just a majority.”

“And you liked them why?”

Kurt tilts his head, considering. “Remember what we said about the teachers, in that PFLAG meeting?”

“That they were douchebags?” Finn looks confused.

“Right. But at Dalton? The physical education teacher sat in the locker room to make sure things weren’t said. The teachers walk the halls between classes. More than that, if I had gone to them and said that another student had been rude to me, they wouldn’t have told me that since they didn’t hear it, it didn’t happen. I didn’t particularly like it there. I missed all of you. But I would give anything to have _one_ teacher at McKinley like most of the teachers at Dalton.”

“Coach is like that now,” Finn says. “If we’d thought to talk to her then, she’d have done something. But she’s just one teacher.”

“And generally not in the main part of the school–understandable, since she’s a coach and a physical education teacher! I can’t trust any of the rest of them, though.”

Finn sighs. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t blame you. I _am_ glad you came back, though. You were like, I dunno, a bird in a box there. It was...weird. And sad. And I couldn’t figure out why it was sad, but it was still sad.”

“The canary and I had plenty in common,” Kurt says lightly. “When they gave him to me, I said I’d take him to work with me. In a coal mine. None of them laughed.”

“You work in your dad’s shop,” Finn says, completely deadpan. He doesn’t seem to be joking.

“Also an enriching environment for a bird that originates in the tropics, I’m sure.”

“Poor Pav,” Finn shakes his head sadly. “Birds don’t belong in cages. Or boxes.”

“No,” Kurt agrees softly. “They really don’t.” He blinks. “We should get Dad and Carole a pet before we leave!”

“Not a bird, though.”

“No, maybe a nice adult rescue dog, that they can take for walks in the evenings together.”

“Aww, yeah, like maybe one of those dogs with the really long hair,” Finn says, sounding enthusiastic. “The kinds that look like mops.”

“Afghan hounds? No, those are silky.” Kurt shrugs. “Anyway, it’s something to think about.” He snaps his fingers a moment later. “Komondor! That’s the mop dogs.”

“No, I think that’s some kind of lizard, dude,” Finn says, dubiously. “Anyway, I mean those tiny dogs, the ones that look like Swiffers.”

“We can’t get them a Swiffer dog! Dad would accidentally sit on it and kill it.”

“Aren’t they pretty yappy? It would warn him.”

“I don’t know. I was thinking of a dog that lived in the backyard instead of in the house. All that fur.”

“But mom needs a lap dog,” Finn argues. “Since she won’t have us around to hug her.”

“You can hug big dogs. Can’t you? And all the vacuuming because of the fur. Besides, a little dog couldn’t go for a very long walk, its little legs would get tired.”

“Mom and Burt are getting old. They shouldn’t walk that far, and anyway, what if they get some big dog and it, like, breaks their hip?” Finn shakes his head. “No, they need something small and cute, that will sit in mom’s lap and let her feed it treats and brush it.”

“They aren’t _that_ old! God, Finn, your mom’s not even forty until next month.”

“But age sneaks up on people. Mom says that all the time, that she thinks old age is sneaking up on her.”

“She was talking about the lines on her face, Finn.”

“Anyway, I don’t like big dogs,” Finn confesses. “Our neighbors had one when I was little, some kind of Doberman something, and it got out once and knocked me over. It was scary. Now I like dogs I can fit in my coat pocket.”

“So anything under fifty pounds or so, and we’re good to go,” Kurt quips.

 

By now, Puck would think something was wrong with the world if Rachel didn’t come up to him after English each day and walk down the hall towards the choir room. Sometimes, like today, she tucks her hand in the crook of his arm, and her tone is quieter; other days she gestures with both hands and speaks more loudly. The former didn’t start happening until after she found out about he and Kurt, really, but either way, it’s a pattern, and today she’s discussing how Blaine untagged himself on the video of Kurt singing, but how she’s sure several of the Warblers saw it before then.

When they get to the choir room, they both stop in their tracks, because it looks like a Party City threw up in it. Schue’s standing in the middle of the room wearing a Santa hat and holding a manager-Jesus in one hand and a menorah in the other. Puck pauses to be thankful that the menorah isn’t lit.

“Come in!” he beams. “I thought we’d celebrate the holidays now that Sectionals is past!” He gestures with the menorah towards a small table in front of him. “Write your name down and put it in the hat for our Secret Chrismukkah Gift Exchange!”

“Uh, sure,” Puck nods, heading over to the table and scribbling ‘Puck’ on a piece of paper before folding it once and depositing it into the hat. That task done, he makes his way to the back row and settles in to watch Mr. Schue accost the remaining members of glee club.

In between Schue’s greetings, Rachel tries to give him a lesson on how Hanukkah is not, in fact, a major Jewish holiday, but rather a minor one, and how conflating it with Christmas is, perhaps, not entirely accurate. He cuts her off by asking if there are any special Hanukkah songs because apparently it’s holiday music week.

At least they aren’t caroling in the classrooms this year.

Puck’s just thought that, and everyone’s just sat down, when Schue sets down the manager-Jesus and the menorah and claps his hands together. “Great news, everyone. Figgins said that in honor of our victory, we are going to perform at a special assembly on Friday! Our complete sectionals set. Isn’t that cool?”

“Uh, yeah?” Finn says, dubiously. “We don’t have to dress up like Santa or Jewish Santa or whatever, right?”

“Hanukkah Armadillo, dude, but only you, since you thought him up.”

“There’s a Hanukkah Armadillo?” Schue asks, looking between Rachel and Puck very quickly and seemingly very confused.

“I didn’t make him up. He’s from that old TV show,” Finn explains. “The one your dads named you after, Rach.”

Schue just blinks and shakes his head. “All right, well. No, wear your costumes from Saturday. This week we’re going to sing holiday music! After we draw for our gift exchange.”

“If I draw Finn, I’m redrawing,” Kurt announces.

“I’ll go first and if I get you or myself, I’m redrawing,” Finn says, pulling a name out of the hat. He looks at it and nods. “Nope, we’re good, dude.”

Kurt springs up next, unfolding the paper and raising one eyebrow briefly before pocketing the slip of paper and nodding at Puck. Puck reaches in and reads the chicken-scratch quickly. Sam. Well, that shouldn’t be too hard.

The rest of the club goes up one by one, finishing with Brittany, who smiles as she bounces back to her seat. “Mr. Schue?” Rachel raises her hand. “Do we have a target spending amount?”

“Let’s say... fifteen dollars. And please, no gag gifts.”

“Thank you,” Rachel nods. “I think we can all work well within that stricture.”

“So! Does anyone have a holiday song they’d like to sing today?”

“I have one I enjoy, even if it for another religion’s holiday,” Rachel offers, already standing.

“Great, let’s hear it.”

With that, Rachel leaps into “Grown-Up Christmas List,” which is, in Puck’s opinion, a pretty ridiculous song to begin with, and Rachel doesn’t really redeem it.

 _No more lives torn apart  
That wars would never start  
And time would heal all hearts  
Every man would have a friend  
That right would always win  
And love would never end  
This is my grown-up Christmas list_

The applause is lukewarm, not because of Rachel’s performance but just because the song is so bad, Puck thinks. Artie raises his hand next.

“Mr. Schuester?” he says. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to sing a Christmas song, too.”

“Of course. Great,” Schue gestures that the floor is Artie’s.

“Brittany, I want you to remember that this song is _just pretend_ , all right?” Artie says, looking at Brittany. “Can you remember that?”

Brittany just nods, and Artie whispers to the jazz band for a moment. Puck has to suppress a laugh when Artie starts singing, because he recognizes the song–it’s by Weird Al, of all people.

 _Down in the workshop all the elves were makin' toys  
For the good Gentile girls and the good Gentile boys  
When the boss busted in, nearly scared 'em half to death  
Had a rifle in his hands and cheap whiskey on his breath  
From his beard to his boots he was covered with ammo  
Like a big fat drunk disgruntled Yuletide Rambo  
And he smiled as he said with a twinkle in his eye,  
"Merry Christmas to all - now you're all gonna die!"_

About half the club is already laughing, and the other half looks toward between horror and hilarity.

 _The night Santa went crazy  
The night Kris Kringle went nuts  
Now you can't hardly walk around the North Pole  
Without steppin' in reindeer guts_

 _There's the National Guard and the F.B.I.  
There's a van from the Eyewitness News  
And helicopters circlin' 'round in the sky  
And the bullets are flyin', the body count's risin'  
And everyone's dyin' to know, oh Santa, why?  
My my my my my my  
You used to be such a jolly guy_

Puck is definitely one of the ones laughing, and even Brittany is smiling, clearly doing her best to remember that the song is just pretend.

 _something finally must have snapped... in his brain_

Schue, luckily, is also amongst those laughing. “Oh, wow, I’d forgotten about that song,” he says as Artie finishes to applause and high fives. “Great job, Artie.” He scans the room. “Anyone else?”

“What about a group number?” Tina suggests. “I bet we all know ‘Let There Be Peace on Earth.’”

“That’s a fantastic idea, Tina,” Schue agrees, nodding. “How about it, guys?”

There’s a lot of general nodding and acceptance of the idea, and no one speaks out against it, so they quickly arrange themselves and Schue even has the presence of mind to turn on the microphones that the AV club just leaves in the choir room now.

“Girls first verse, boys second verse, then all together on the second run-through?” Santana suggests.

Everyone nods again, and then Brad starts on the piano.

 _Let There Be Peace on Earth and let it begin with me.  
Let There Be Peace on Earth, the peace that was meant to be!  
With God as our Father, brothers all are we.  
Let me walk with my brother in perfect harmony._

The girls’ voices fade and the boys pick up the next lines.

 _Let peace begin with me. Let this be the moment now.  
With ev'ry breath I take, let this be my solemn vow;  
To take each moment and live each moment in peace eternally!  
Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me!_

They sing it through another time, all together, and Schue just grins at them when the last notes fade. “See you Thursday,” he says quietly, and they all slip out, the usual volume of chatter a bit reduced.

Thanks to the lack of dual enrollment, Puck and Kurt have a leisurely lunch at the cafe down the street from Puck’s apartment, finishing off with baklava before walking up the stairs and eventually landing in Puck’s bed, stripped bare. They’re careful to watch the clock, though, and they’re appropriately attired, Puck’s bed smoothed, and studying by the time Rina and Hannah arrive home. After weeks of dual enrollment, it feels like cheating that they’re done with their homework before dinner is ready, and afterwards, the four of them finally agree on a movie to watch– _National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation_. Puck curls up against Kurt, or maybe it’s the other way around; it doesn’t really matter, because Puck spends the evening alternating between laughing with Kurt and kissing Kurt.

His mom sends Hannah to bed as soon as the movie ends, then disappears into her own room, and Puck leaves the television playing softly in the background. He cups Kurt’s cheek in his hand and presses their lips softly together for a long moment before Kurt parts his lips barely and his tongue darts out, encouraging Puck to do the same. Puck complies happily, and Kurt’s hands run softly over Puck’s head, keeping their lips tightly together.

Kurt shifts after a long moment, drawing Puck more on top of him, and when Puck’s leg slips between Kurt’s, Kurt’s thighs immediately squeeze, holding it there. They’re still kissing, just as leisurely and unhurriedly as before, but Kurt rolls his hips minutely, and Puck feels his erection pressing against the top of Puck’s leg.

It’s probably stupid, but Hannah’s likely asleep and there’s no light spilling into the room from down the hall, so Puck moves again, this time thrusting his hips down to let his covered cock make itself known against Kurt’s. Kurt shudders a little underneath him, his body arching up, and at that point, Puck decides he doesn’t care that it’s stupid, or that they already each got off twice earlier. He moves against Kurt, their lips still fused together and tongues sliding against each other, and Kurt meets every motion from underneath him. Even kissing, there are still small sounds escaping from the two of them, and Puck just hopes neither his mom nor his sister will notice or decide to investigate.

Kurt thrusts upwards with a little more force, and a vibration rolls along his tongue; Puck drags himself along Kurt’s length, steadily bearing down, and then Kurt stiffens and comes underneath him. Puck repeats the motion, then rolls his hips down and comes as well, Kurt’s still responsive mouth swallowing whatever sound he produces.

They sit up after a moment and Puck smirks a little at the decidedly darker spot on the front of Kurt’s pants. Kurt rolls his eyes but returns the smirk, eyeing Puck’s jeans, and by mutual unspoken agreement, Puck walks Kurt towards the door, Kurt shouldering his bag and kissing Puck briefly before opening the door. “Be good.”

“I’m always good,” Puck replies softly, then locks the door behind Kurt before heading towards his room. He’s going to have to dig out yet another pair of fresh underwear before crawling into bed.

 

Kurt fusses with his coat for a moment after climbing out of the Nav. It’s just long enough that should he pass anyone on his way to his room, they won’t immediately notice that he’s sporting a darker area on the front of his pants. It’s not like any of them would be surprised, mind, but he doesn’t feel like he needs to wear a sign, or take out an ad.

Maybe a post on Facebook. He giggles as he walks through the garage, imagining such a post.

‘Had fantastic sex with boyfriend this afternoon instead of attending dual enrollment classes. His ass is divine and his cock to die for. Twice just wasn’t enough; we had to end the evening with a little garden-variety frottage. We’re so hot, we make each other come in our pants.’

No, probably not the best idea. Too many people would Like the post and fewer people, but still too many, would want details. Finn would probably comment with ‘UNCOOL,’ and Kurt spares a moment to be thankful, again, that his dad doesn’t even use Facebook.

Kurt finds himself humming ‘The Best Thing I Never Had’ under his breath as he walks through the darkened first floor and grins to himself. The lights upstairs are out, too, and Kurt strips as soon as his bedroom door is closed. He grabs a pair of fleece pants and a long-sleeved shirt, jamming his feet into his slippers so he can go to the bathroom without having ice blocks at the end of his legs.

Ablutions complete, Kurt sinks into his mattress, buried under his mounds of blankets and duvet, phone in hand.

 _Sleep well, baby, and have sweet dreams xx_

He sets his alarm and waits for less than a minute before his phone vibrates with Puck’s response.

 _I always do when you’re in them K xx night_

Kurt grins and lets his phone fall onto his bedside table. Sweet dreams indeed.

 

Kurt picks up Puck early on Tuesday, but this week they get to go to breakfast again, not to rehearsal, and Puck can admit that he’s probably almost chipper when he walks into history. Brittany just beams at him. Sam does a double-take of sorts. “Good morning?”

“It is,” Puck agrees, taking a sip of his coffee. “It really is.”

“Do I want to know why?” Finn asks.

“Do you ever?”

“If it involves, like, cookies or a trip somewhere, sure,” Finn says. “Anything else, no. And really, only the cookies if there’s some for me.”

“Then no, you don’t.” Puck grins.

“Fair enough,” Finn says, nodding. “You got all your shit ready for class? I have no clue what’s going on in here right now. I mean, I thought that America fought the British in 1776, so why are they still fighting them in 1812?”

“Who knows?” Puck agrees. “It was uncool that they burned shit down.”

“Which one had the tea? I can’t remember which one had the tea. Did they burn tea or something?”

“Nah, they burned buildings and art and all that.”

“Where was the tea? Was there not any tea left or something?” Finn looks very confused and flips through his notes half-heartedly.

“Yeah, that’s why we drink coffee over here.”

“Oh, ok. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.” Finn smiles at Puck. “Thanks, dude. If I’d realized you were so smart, I would have been asking you for help way earlier.”

“Don’t read the textbook,” Puck says with the air of imparting a great secret. “Just take notes. It takes way less time and the teacher thinks I’m a fucking genius when I quote her on a test.”

“Cool. Ok. I’ll try that.”

“Also, Wikipedia.”

“Seriously? You think that’ll help? ‘Cause I can’t sync up my notes from the book and my notes from the lecture. It just comes out looking like two totally different histories and then I’m really confused later,” Finn says, shaking his head.

“There’s a timeline on Wikipedia. I haven’t opened the textbook in like, a month or more.”

“ _Sweet_! Ok, link me to that later.”

“No prob.” The teacher starts talking then, and Puck gestures to Finn’s paper before starting to scribble his own notes.

Physics has something to do with transferring heat, and Puck scribbles down the equations and then he and Kurt do their own transference of heat between each other. By now they’ve learned that no one in the class pays attention to them; most of the others are juniors who just weren’t quite smart enough for some AP class or something, and the teacher doesn’t care how close they move their stools or anything, as long as they’re quiet.

By the time Puck reaches English, he’s _still_ in a good mood, because he just has to sit through English and he’s done listening to teachers for the day. Plus it’s Tuesday. He grins at Rachel when she sits down and she nods, looking a little disturbed, which just makes Puck grin wider.

“Are you quite all right?” she asks as soon as the bell rings.

“Yeah, of course, why?”

“You have a strangely large grin on your face.”

“So I’m not supposed to be in a good mood? I see how it is.”

“Oh, stop it!” Rachel grins herself. “Is there any reason _in particular_ that you’re in such a good mood?”

Puck shrugs as they walk into the choir room. “It’s Tuesday.”

Finn hears Puck’s statement and a look of horror crosses his face. “Nobody planned anything on Tuesdays.”

“Exactly.”

“Then we don’t talk about Tuesdays,” Finn says, sternly. “Even _on_ Tuesday.”

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Rachel says, looking between the two of them, clearly confused.

“It’s better that way,” Finn assures her.

“What’re we doing today?” Santana asks she strolls into the room.

“Talking about the Trojammers and the Pips,” Finn says. “Not watching them, though, just talking.”

“Thank god.” Kurt sinks into a seat. “I could live the rest of my life without hearing any more hooker songs.”

“Hoooookaaaa,” Brittany sings. “I love that Lady Gaga song.”

“Okay, only that song about hookers,” Kurt concedes. “No others.”

“Right, no hooker songs,” Finn says. “Not really relevant for preparing for Regionals, but if we _were_ making a list about the Trojammers, we’d put that on there. No hookers.”

“You mean I’m not reprising my role at the whiteboard?”

“Only if you’re losing sleep without it,” Finn says, shrugging. “I don’t know that there’s too much to learn from those performances. What we need is to get our hands on some videos of our Regionals competition.”

“I have a few,” Kurt says with a small smirk. “Of Aural Intensity, anyway.”

“We’ll start on that next week, then,” Finn states. “We’ll do that and finalize the set list on Tuesday.”

“So what is there to say about the other two teams?” Sam asks. “I mean, let’s just take as a given that their song choices were awful.”

“Don’t use your set list to send a secret message to your ex-boyfriend. Check!” Finn says.

“Don’t choose a potentially offensive theme,” Tina snorts.

“Hookers and stalkers, a winning combination,” Artie quips. “What’s not to love?”

“The Trojammers did do a good job with their harmonizing,” Rachel concedes. “And their choreography was rather simple, but it was crisp.”

“I think they should have switched. That would have been better. I wanted to see Warblers singing about hookers,” Brittany says.

Kurt snickers. “I would actually pay good money to see that.”

“We should ask them on Facebook!” Brittany answers, brightly. “That would be so much fun. They should wear costumes.”

“Somehow I doubt that message would get to them,” Kurt says, biting his lip.

“How _dare_ you!” Finn yells.

Puck snorts back a laugh as Kurt giggles and the others have varying degrees of amusement displayed on their faces. Even Rachel grins widely for a moment. “Did the other Warblers even really sing?” she asks.

“I think they just ooh and sway in the background,” Mercedes says, wryly. Rachel has the grace to flush slightly.

“Sometimes they ‘ahh,’ too,” Kurt adds.

“What about ‘eee,’ ‘eye,’ or ‘you,’” Puck quips.

“Are they going to sing ‘Old McDonald’ next time?” Brittany asks. “That song confuses me.”

“Maybe they’d have a better chance with a medley of nursery rhymes,” Santana snorts.

“I mean, how do you know what comes next? Is it the pig? The cow? How do you know?” Brittany continues.

“Size order,” Mike says, nodding solemnly. “Go from smallest to largest.”

“I think that’s ‘The Old Woman Who Swallowed the Fly,’” Artie responds. “Old McDonald, you start with traditional farm animals in any order, and you expand from there.”

“They can add that to their set list, too.” Mercedes grins.

“Blaine should make the gopher noise,” Brittany says. “He’d be good at gophers. He just pops up places.”

“Maybe more like Whack-A-Mole,” Puck suggests.

“I’d hit that,” Brittany says.

“Yeah, me, too,” Finn says. “With a stick. Or a club. Maybe a hammer.”

“I thought we were going the decapitation route,” Santana smirks.

“Sticks first. Decapitation second. Maybe that one that means throw him out a window third,” Finn says, nodding.

“Bloodthirsty much?” Quinn asks. “I mean, I agree that their set list was inappropriate, but I don’t think it justifies talking about _killing_ anyone. No one’s set list is that bad.”

“Defenestrate,” Artie says, answering Finn and completely ignoring Quinn. “To forcibly cause to exit via the window.”

“I think their objection is not to the set list per se, but rather to making me feel like I have a creepy stalker,” Kurt addresses Quinn directly.

“And what do we do with creepy stalkers, Puck?” Finn asks.

“Whack-A-Mole.”

“Sure. That sounds right,” Finn nods. “We Whack-A-Mole.”

Quinn just sniffs dismissively. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Hey, weren’t Mike and Brittany going to give us ideas for a dance number?” Mercedes asks.

“Yes, they were,” Finn says, shifting gears to look at Mike and Brittany expectantly. “So? What’d you come up with?”

“Well, our top choice is ‘Tubthumping.’ It was released in ‘97, so I don’t know if everyone knows it...” Mike trails off. “It’s the one about getting knocked down.”

“And getting back up again!” Brittany chirps. “It’s a good message to children.”

“Can you play it for us?” Sam asks.

“Sure.” Mike pulls out his phone and the music blares out within a few moments. It’s not as long of a song as ‘I Gotta Feeling,’ and Puck almost hates to imagine what kind of choreography Mike and Brittany have in mind.

Finn nods and makes his thoughtful face. “Yeah. I like that. Do you think the lines about the alcohol are gonna be a problem, though?”

“I think the part about ‘pissing’ is a bigger problem,” Puck points out, “but we can replace that with something else.”

“Like animal sounds?” Brittany asks.

“Maybe another word instead, Britt-Britt,” Santana says gently.

“What about ‘singing’?” Tina offers. “It’s the same number of syllables and we are singing, after all.”

“Yeah, yeah, that sounds good,” Finn nods.

“Two songs, one to go,” Sam grins.

“And we’ve still got a whole week to figure the last one out!” Finn say, enthusiastically. “That way we go into the holiday break with that already taken care of, and we can think about things like choreography and arrangement instead.”

 

Puck’s good mood lasts through lunch (which includes Sam doing impressions of Schue, Beiste, and Sylvester) and into the afternoon. He packs everything up before the final bell and heads to Ms. Pillsbury’s office to ask her about changing his dual enrollment class for winter.

“I just think I need the time and probably the instruction,” Puck explains, frowning. “When they say competency on an instrument, they don’t mean acoustic guitar, and I’m pretty good at piano considering that I’ve never had a formal lesson, but that doesn’t mean I’ll look competent.”

“No, that’s a good point,” Ms. Pillsbury agrees. “I’ll change this in your schedule right away.” She smiles. “I’ll still be by on Thursday, if that’s all right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Puck nods, standing. “Thanks, Ms. P.”

“You’re welcome, Noah. Have a good afternoon.”

“You too.”

Puck stops at his locker almost absently and leaves most of his stuff in his locker. Sometimes he thinks it’s the teachers that have senioritis more than than the students. He climbs into the Nav and grins at Kurt. “Good afternoon at work?”

“Boring afternoon,” Kurt corrects. “What can you do?”

“We could damage some of the roads so low-riding cars and trucks will damage their whatever it’s called, and give you interesting work to do?”

“You’re so good to me,” Kurt says, sniffing dramatically. “Let’s do it. We’ll start in neighborhoods and move up to Harding.”

Puck laughs. “Repair shops across our bustling metropolis will be puzzled by the rash of similar damages.”

“Have you been drinking?” Kurt asks, suddenly peering at him with mock-concern. “Bustling metropolis?”

“Okay, uh, small crossroads town?” Puck laughs again. “Something like that.”

“Small crossroads town with enough business to keep Dad busy late on Tuesdays, thankfully.” Kurt smirks a little as he cuts the engine and climbs out.

“That is true,” Puck agrees, shutting the passenger door and following Kurt into the house. “Finn?”

“Home for dinner but not before,” Kurt nods, walking up the stairs backwards.

“I guess we’ll have to make the most of the time we have, then.”

Kurt shuts the bedroom door behind them. “So we will.”

 

Finn smells chicken marsala as soon as he walks in the door, and grins, because that means Kurt’s cooking and Kurt’s-cooking nights? The best!

“Helloooo!” Finn calls out. “I’m home! Everybody have pants on?”

“That’d be a little dangerous for cooking!” Puck yells back.

“Well, what do I know?” Finn says, entering the kitchen. He leans on the doorframe. “Maybe that’s some kind of extreme cooking you guys do.”

“If that ends up being on cable in a few years, I’ll know who to blame,” Kurt sighs, turning to look at Finn.

“Yeah, I think I’ll skip that show,” Finn says, making a face. Pantless cooking shows? _So_ not Finn’s thing. “How long until it’s ready, anyway?”

“Just a few minutes,” Kurt responds, stepping away from the stove slightly. “We figured you’d be home around now.”

“Left it as late as I could. I know Tuesday’s the, um, Finn stay away from home day,” Finn says, looking a little askance. Maybe he’s not supposed to bring that up directly? He never knows, really. He’s almost stopped worrying about it, ‘cause it obviously doesn’t bother _them_.

Neither of them seems fazed by the reference, Kurt shrugging and turning to the rice cooker and Puck just continuing with what he’s doing, whatever that is. “Can you set the table?” Kurt asks after a second.

Finn nods and starts pulling down the plates. “We don’t need anything weird for this dinner, right? Just plates and silverware?”

“And pop,” Puck agrees.

“Sounds good to me, dude.” Finn rifles around in the fridge until he finds the last three cans of Pepsi Throwback. Kurt was right about one thing; that real sugar stuff is way better. Well, Kurt’s right about a lot of things, so Finn shouldn’t have been surprised, really. Kurt is right almost all of the time. Almost.

“I think the teachers have senioritis,” Puck announces. “Or holiday fever or something.”

“Oh, that’s sad,” Finn says, doing his best to look both sad and dopey, which, easier than you’d think. “They didn’t get shots this year?”

“Figgins probably cut the budget,” Kurt says, biting down on his lower lip before turning to dish up the food. “Isn’t that the answer to pretty much everything? Figgins cut the budget?”

“They’re gonna start making us bring in our own rolls of TP by April,” Finn answers. “Can you just see a hallway full of freshmen with their backpacks full of rolls of Charmin?” Finn snorts a laugh at himself and the mental image of some teensy Casey-sized guy struggling under a backpack full of toilet paper.

“There’s a fundraising idea. ‘Tired of cheap toilet paper? For only $2, purchase a roll of ultra-soft Charmin!’” Puck laughs.

“I don’t know about you, dude, but I don’t think I want people thinking about glee when they wipe their butts.”

“At least they’d be thinking about us,” Kurt points out dryly, taking his seat.

“And at least it’d be soft instead of scratchy on their ass.”

“It’s always about ass with you, Puck,” Finn says. “Some things never change, I guess.” Which is true, because Puck was all about ass when he was with girls and he seems to be pretty ass-centric these days, too. Ass-centric, heh. Finn’s gotta remember to use that one out loud some time.

“It’s true,” Kurt muses, smirking slightly at Puck before cutting his eyes at Finn and suddenly finding the act of serving the chicken marsala fascinating.

“Geez, you guys,” Finn says, but it’s half-hearted. He’s pretty much desensitized, but wonders if it might hurt their feelings if he doesn’t at least play along.

“You should write a book,” Puck says, seemingly out of the blue.

“Yeah, I should,” Finn says, grinning, then stops. “Wait, what?”

Puck chuckles. “You might want to see what you’re agreeing to, dude, before you agree to it. Nah, you should write, like. I don’t know. A Straight Guy’s Guide to Hanging Out with Gay Dudes.”

“Chapter one: there will be lots of ass,” Kurt quips.

“Chapter two: everything you say, they’re gonna _make_ about ass,” Finn adds, making a face at Kurt.

“He’s catching on,” Puck mock-whispers to Kurt, then turns back to Finn. “Chapter three: If it’s not about ass, it’s about–”

“ _Dude_!” Finn says. “I’m cool, but I’m not _that_ cool. Unless you were gonna say, like, fashion or something. ‘Cause I’m totally supportive of that as long as I don’t have to wear it. Actually, I’m cool with all of that stuff,” he says, waving his hand in the general vicinity of Puck and Kurt, “as long as I don’t have to do it. But seriously, dude. That’s my _brother_.”

“What?” Puck protests. “I was going to say rainbows. It’s about rainbows.”

“Mmmhmm.” Sure. _Rainbows_ , dude. Finn’s not dumb. He was _not_ gonna say rainbows.

“Everyone always thinks the worst of me, blue eyes,” Puck says to Kurt, mock-sadly. “Everyone except you.”

“Poor baby,” Kurt grins. “Eat your greens.”

Finn’s not gonna be the one to say out loud that Puck and Kurt are actually pretty damn cute, because that’s just not something dudes say to each other. He just thinks it, silently, to himself. “You two done feeling sorry for Puck yet?”

“For now. It’s an ongoing battle,” Kurt sighs.

“Sucks to be you, dude,” Finn says, loading up his fork. “You have a rough life, hanging out over here, eating chicken marsala that your boyfriend cooked. It’s good we don’t all have to suffer like that.”

“It’s a blemish on the bright spot that is this week, bro.”

Finn snorts. Puck’s such a dork sometimes. “Who’d you guys get for Secret Chrismukkah, anyway?”

“Sam,” Puck replies. “So I figure something to do with comics or _Avatar_ or Bieber and I’m good, right?”

“Right!” Finn laughs. “I’ve got Tina. So, black lace gloves or Twilight perfume?”

“Oh, no,” Puck groans. “ _Not_ the Twilight perfume!”

“Get her some huge earrings,” Kurt suggests. “But not colorful. Since hair’s so short now, they’d look good.”

“Eh,” Finn says, giving Kurt his best ‘you’re not serious, right?’ look. “Earrings? That’s kinda. I mean, buying jewelry for a girl who’s not my girlfriend doesn’t sound like a good idea, dude. Girls don’t really appreciate that.” He pauses for a moment. “ _Rachel_ isn’t gonna appreciate that.”

“And you wanted to get her perfume?” Kurt raises his eyebrow.

“ _Twilight_ perfume, Kurt,” Finn explains. “That’s about as personal as buying a pack of gum. I think it has, like, glitter in it.”

“Now I have a disturbing image of gum with glitter.”

“Who’d you get, anyway?” Finn asks, mouth full of his last bite of marsala.

“Rachel.”

“Really?” Finn asks, only it comes out more like ‘reeree’ because of the food. “That’s awesome.”

“If there weren’t a limit, I have all sorts of ideas,” Kurt sighs slightly.

“Like what?” Finn gives Kurt his completely attention, because he could still use a couple of things for Hanukkah, to be honest. The bath stuff from Lush is awesome, but he wanted something a little more...something.

“Clothes, mainly,” Kurt admits. “But it’d be relatively easy to find a good deal, they don’t sell out of her size quickly.”

“Because her size is _teensy_ ,” Finn says, warmth in his voice.

“Exactly!” Kurt beams at Finn, like he’s mastered something of huge importance. “I’ll just have to see what I can scrounge up whenever we manage to go shopping.”

“We’re still going to Dayton on Saturday, right?” Puck asks Kurt, who nods.

“Gay club?” Finn asks. “Tell April hey for me. She seems cool.”

Kurt snorts inelegantly but nods. “She’s the one that sent me the videos of Aural Intensity, as you probably figured out.”

“That girl’s hilarious,” Puck adds, shaking his head.

“You should, I dunno, invite her to something some time,” Finn suggests. “In case Santana and Brittany are off again. It would be awful if they got all lonely and stuff.”

“You’re so considerate of your friends,” Kurt deadpans.

“We should invite her to Pride with us next year,” Finn adds. “I bet she knows how to party. She can teach _you_ how.”

Kurt and Puck exchange a long glance and then both slowly smirk, Puck shaking his head slightly and Kurt’s smirk growing wider. “I’m sure she could,” Kurt finally says, mildly.

“What? I’m missing something again.”

“April is...” Kurt seems to be searching to find the right word. “She has a perfect record of her own, let’s say.”

“Ok, yeah, I have no idea what that means,” Finn says, jovially. “But, whatever. She’s cool, so.” He shrugs. “Unless you guys have any thoughts on our third song, I’m gonna head upstairs and do some homework. I’ve got a paper to finish by Friday.”

“Gotta get down on Friday.”

“I’m definitely looking forward to the weekend,” Finn says, pushing in his chair. “See you guys later.”

“Later,” they both echo, though their attention has clearly left Finn, directed once again solely at each other. Finn just rolls his eyes, because what else can he do, right? If he had a chance to just sit around and stare at Rachel every day after hours of...whatever they were doing, he probably wouldn’t pass it up, either.

 

Wednesday isn’t quite as awesome as either of the days before, but that’s mainly because they both have to go to work in the afternoon. Before that, though, they grab sandwiches at Joey’s and then head upstairs to Puck’s apartment, sitting in the living room until they finish eating.

Kurt sets down the napkin that he’s just used to wipe his mouth and then slowly and deliberately removes his sweater, followed by the long-sleeved shirt underneath it. He stands up and crooks his finger at Puck with a grin, catching Puck’s hand in his and pulling him up beside him.

Puck fits their mouths together, his hands on the back of Kurt’s head, and then Kurt’s hands are underneath Puck’s shirt before slowly removing it. Puck’s nearly lost count of how many times they’ve each come over the past few days, but he’s as hard as if it’d been weeks, and he really wishes every week could be like this one. He rocks his pelvis forward, barely grazing against Kurt’s equally hard cock.

Kurt’s mouth moves along Puck’s jawline, then nips at his earlobe before his lips are brushing against Puck’s ear. “Bed, baby.”

Every once in awhile, Puck is still privately amazed at how a tiny four letter word can make him feel, when it’s Kurt saying it, his voice full of want and need. Kurt could ask for just about anything with that word and that voice, and Puck’s answer would be predetermined before he ever heard the actual question: whatever Kurt wants, yes.

They stumble into Puck’s bedroom, Kurt’s lips back on Puck’s and now Kurt’s hands are on his scalp, caressing it as they crash onto the bed, legs tangled haphazardly. Puck fumbles with Kurt’s pants, sliding his hand inside Kurt’s underwear and wrapping his fingers around Kurt’s erection loosely. Kurt bucks a little into his head, a tiny noise escaping from between their lips, and Puck grins into their kiss.

He finds himself imitating Kurt a moment later, when Kurt’s palm slides down Puck’s length before the tips of Kurt’s fingers curl around it. It doesn’t take long for them to work in unison, hands sliding and tightening and loosening as their lips and tongues press together, and Puck can’t even really say he’s surprised when he thrusts hard into Kurt’s hand and empties himself all over both of them. Kurt does the same a moment later, fluid warm and sticky on both of them, mixing together. Puck moves his mouth and turns his attention to Kurt’s chest and cock, cleaning them both with his tongue, and then Kurt returns the favor, and by the time they’re both adequately cleaned, Puck’s more than half hard again, and Kurt is too.

Puck kicks off his jeans, and Kurt does the same, settling their now-naked bodies together underneath Puck’s blankets by mutual accord. The room is quiet, so quiet, except for their breath and skin slapping skin. Puck’s lips slide over Kurt’s nipples and then up his shoulders, Kurt’s hands kneading gently at the muscles of Puck’s back.

Kurt’s whisper barely breaks the silence. “I want you inside me, Puck.”

“Mmm,” Puck murmurs into Kurt’s neck. “Yeah, blue eyes.” He tilts his head up and runs his tongue along Kurt’s lips, waiting for them to part, then sliding into Kurt’s mouth. Kurt’s movements are a little sloppy and a little forceful, and Puck deepens the kiss further, a bit more insistent.

Kurt rolls onto his back, pulling Puck on top of him, and Puck plants his forearms on either side of Kurt’s head, running his hands through Kurt’s hair. They continue kissing, Puck slowly shifting around until he presses his fingers into Kurt, Kurt’s body jolting upward with the intrusion. Kurt’s mouth falls further open, too, and Puck can feel sound coursing along Kurt’s tongue and into his own mouth. Puck slides his fingers almost completely out, then back deep inside Kurt, twitching his fingertips until Kurt shakes underneath him, arching upward.

Puck pulls back for a moment and Kurt bends his legs upwards before Puck presses slowly in. Kurt rocks upward, his eyes closing, and Puck bites down on his lip as he stops, fully inside Kurt. “Fuck, K,” he says after a minute.

“That’s the idea,” Kurt grunts after a moment, a hint of a smile on his face. “God, please, Puck.”

Puck chuckles and begins moving slowly, bent low over Kurt’s body as he slides in and out. He runs a hand down Kurt’s cock, palm flat, and Kurt clenches down around him, almost hissing. He repeats the motion before letting his fingers curl around Kurt, still moving slowly in and out.

“More,” Kurt offers after a moment. “Just, more.” Puck tightens his grip and drives in a little faster, and Kurt’s words turn into a stream of indecipherable sounds, his body tightening and shuddering under and around Puck. He thrusts in hard, his movements growing uncoordinated, then comes, crying out Kurt’s name and still sliding his hand over Kurt’s cock.

Kurt arches up into Puck’s touch, the sounds turning into a low hum, and then he’s filling Puck’s hand before relaxing into the mattress. Puck slumps down beside him, slowly licking his hand and then wrapping his arms around Kurt. After a few moments, Kurt turns his head, kissing Puck slowly and almost delicately.

They stay in Puck’s bed for a long time, kissing and talking until Kurt looks at the clocks and groans, wrinkling his nose. “I should get ready to leave. I told Dad I’d still be there around three.”

“That means a few minutes late is fine, right?”

“If I want to explain to him why.” Kurt shakes his head. “I’m sure that would go over well.”

“Just tell him that I needed your help,” Puck suggests with a grin.

“Help with what?” Kurt laughs. “I don’t think he wants to hear about that, either.”

Puck tightens his arms around Kurt. “Well, damn.” He kisses Kurt’s forehead, then down his jawline before pressing their lips together. “Okay, blue eyes,” he says with a sigh, releasing Kurt. “Go change oil and wish for something interesting to come along.”

Kurt slips reluctantly out of the bed and starts to pull his clothes on. “You have fun mixing coffee drinks,” he retorts, then bends over to kiss Puck again. “Be good, baby.”

“I’m always good.”

 

Work is oddly busy up until the moment Puck locks the door and starts shooing customers out, so it’s later than usual before Puck heads out the door towards home. He sticks his earbuds in and hits Kurt’s number as he steps onto the sidewalk.

“Late night?”

“Yeah, kinda busy tonight.” Puck suppresses a yawn. “But it’ll be easier for me in the morning since I was the one closing.”

“That’s true. Nothing interesting came in for me,” Kurt adds, and Puck can almost hear the pout on his face.

Puck laughs. “Sorry, K. I didn’t get a chance to damage any roads or cars yet.”

“I knew we’d forgotten to do something!”

“Would it count as industrial espionage? That sounds a lot more awesome than destruction of property.”

“Ooh, yes. Corporate espionage, definitely. And then we wouldn’t even be charged, because corporations? Are important.” Kurt snorts.

“Exactly.” Puck chuckles. “Okay, blue eyes, I’m going to stop and grab something to eat.”

“Okay.” Kurt pauses and Puck likes to think he’s smiling in the pause. “See you in the morning, baby.”

“Be good.”

“I’m always good.”

 

In the hall between third and fourth periods on Thursday, Puck notices that either he or Rachel are getting a few odd looks, so when they go around a corner, he takes a second to quickly look her over and then whispers “Do I have something on my face or something?”

“No,” Rachel shakes her head. “I don’t either, do I? People are looking at us strangely!”

“Who knows?” Puck shrugs, and then Rachel releases his arm and walks over to duck under Finn’s arm.

“Who knows what?” Kurt asks as Puck sits down.

“People were looking at Rachel and I funny,” Puck shrugs. “But we weren’t wearing any signs or anything, so whatever.”

“Maybe it’s a holiday thing,” Finn suggests. “Like, they’re trying to see if they can figure out what Hanukkah looks like through the eyes of Lima’s Jewish Superstars.”

Rachel beams and practically flings herself at Finn, and Puck suspects that whatever Finn had planned for fourth period is going to be delayed for at least a few minutes. He thinks that right up until the moment Artie wheels through the door about thirty seconds later.

“I got in!” Artie hoots, before he’s even all the way in the door. “California, here I come, baby!”

The room explodes into a barely-controlled cacophony of cheers, congratulations, and a slightly breathless ‘Mazel tov!’ from Rachel’s direction. Finn mumbles ‘L’chaim’ automatically, probably not even aware he’s saying it.

“Thank you, thank you,” Artie says, bowing. “Now I know how you and Kurt must have both felt, Puck. _Such_ a relief!”

“When did you find out?” Sam asks. “Yesterday?”

“No, literally about five minutes ago,” Artie answers. “They post it online. I may have been checking it obsessively for the last two weeks.”

“That’s so awesome,” Tina says, grinning, and Mike nods beside her.

“Does this mean the rest of us can officially hate you now, for having it all figured out?” Mercedes laughs.

“Yes,” Artie says, magnanimously. “Please feel free to lavish me with your loathing and petty jealousy. I’ll just bask in it for a while.”

“Don’t worry, we will,” Kurt says with a small grin. “For months, if necessary.”

“You’ve got a fallback option, at least,” Finn says. “You know you’re getting out of here. That’s not nothing.”

“Oh, I’m getting out of here if it involves hitchhiking and working at McDonald’s,” Kurt retorts, but he’s smiling.

“Well, there ya go. A plan,” Finn says. “Now, Artie, I’m real happy for you. Can we talk about the set list now, please?”

“Do we have committees again?”

“I think we probably need to,” Finn says, addressing Tina. “Probably different ones than last time, since we don’t have a song-writing project this time.”

“Did anyone actually come up with a third song?” Puck asks, frowning slightly. “Or even what kind of song we’re looking for?”

“I already helped with one,” Sam says, laughing, and Mercedes and Mike both nod.

“Well, we’ll all keep thinking about it,” Finn says. “I think we need something more... I dunno. Lyrical or something? Less choreography-focused, or we’re gonna wear ourselves out.”

“Yeah, maybe we should plan on doing the heavy choreography first,” Mike agrees. “Then something slower so we can catch our breath.”

“Are we doing _any_ solos?” Quinn asks, sounding more disinterested than anything else. “Not that I want any, but fifteen straight minutes of all of us singing and dancing sounds exhausting.”

“I think the solos are going to be within the larger context of the songs,” Kurt says, and Puck can hear the tiny amount of disdain seeping into his voice. Quinn nods and shrugs a little in response, like Kurt’s answer is enough.

“Great, so. Can we go get Artie a celebratory slushie? We can all help him throw it on the asshole of his choice?” Puck grins at Artie, who puts his fist up for a bump.

Puck complies, and then they all look at Finn expectantly. Finn shakes his head. “Nah, I got nothing else.”

 

Even though he remembers Ms. Pillsbury’s coming by sometime during the afternoon, her tapping on the door still startles Puck. He jumps a little and then calls ‘come in.’

“Noah.” Ms. Pillsbury smiles. “So. Good news.”

“Oh?” Puck sets down his pencil and turns slightly towards her.

“First of all, I did switch your dual enrollment class. Secondly, another one of the professors at OSU-Lima is willing to arrange something with you regarding theory and that other stuff,” she gestures off to the side, and Puck figures that’s because she can’t remember what any of the rest of it is, “two days a week, following your dual enrollment classes.”

“Okay,” Puck nods, thinking. “How–I mean, how much?” He has to ask, because yeah, he gets a decent sized paycheck, but he’s got to pay for Hannah’s dance classes now, and he really needs to be saving as much as he can.

“Well,” Ms. Pillsbury seems to be stalling, and Puck tries not to look too distressed. “She said that she would discuss that with you after the break. I think she wanted to leave for her vacation, to be honest,” she confides. “I don’t think it will be too much, though.”

“Oh, okay.” Puck purses his lips. “Thanks, Ms. P.”

“Oh, you’re welcome, Noah.” She smiles at him. “Have you heard from the Manhattan School of Music about the pre-screening process yet?”

Puck shakes his head. “I haven’t checked my email today, but no.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll hear soon.” She stands back up and walks towards the door, her heels clicking loudly in the empty room. “Have a good break.”

“Yeah, thanks. You too.”

The silence feels almost heavy after she leaves, and Puck shakes out his muscles irritably. Coulda, shoulda, woulda–not going to do him any good, but damn it’s hard to think about all the missed opportunities and the things he could have done years ago to make the right now just a little bit easier.

He just hopes he can figure out a way to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to Hannah, at least.

 

When the bell rings, Puck slumps into a seat in the back row and wonders who’s going to sing a song today. He’s pretty sure Kurt has something up his sleeve but he wouldn’t say what, just grinned and then distracted Puck pretty thoroughly.

Kurt walks in sandwiched by Mercedes and Tina, who are apparently trying to get him to join in on a shopping expedition for Schue’s Secret Chrismukkah Exchange.

“I can’t, girls,” Kurt shakes his head, but his smile is fond. “You told me all the girls but Brittany were going. I have one of you five. Ergo, I can’t.”

“Oh, you can slip off! You’re like the master at stealth shopping,” Mercedes protests. “Didn’t you tell me that you once bought your dad a present while he was standing at the next register, and he didn’t notice.”

“That was _one time_ , and it’s only because he was talking about radiators with the other cashier,” Kurt says. “Besides, I have other plans on Saturday.”

 _Ohhh_. Yeah, Kurt does have other plans. “Are you studying for more of those tests?” Tina asks, and it’s almost funny how Kurt’s eyes light up slightly at the offered excuse.

“Yes, exactly. I don’t want to think about them over most of the holiday.” Kurt’s head bobs up and down quickly.

“We’ve got to hit the mall one day during the break, boo,” Mercedes says with a little sigh. “I know you’re probably working but let me know when you can, okay?”

“I’ll check and see,” Kurt smiles stiffly and sits down between the two of them. Puck purses his lips. He never meant for their relationship to mean that Kurt barely saw any of his friends who weren’t in the know, but that’s what has slowly happened. Kurt insists that he was growing away from Mercedes anyway, and there’s a wealth of unspoken words about that that Puck does acknowledge as true.

Puck still can’t wait to leave.

Schue bursts into the room a few moments later. “So! Before we sing, we should talk about our fundraising efforts.” He looks around. “I know some of you were working on the dance more than others...?”

“It’s going very well!” Rachel says with a smile. “We have several donations of important supplies, and we have great plans in place for most things.”

“We’re going to do it like prom, with the performances, I mean,” Finn adds. “We’re working on the schedule for that and we’ll give you the list before the event.”

“Great, great,” Schue nods.

“What about the money?” Puck asks. It doesn’t really matter how well they all sing if they don’t sell any tickets and make any money.

“We’re gonna start sales when we’re back from break, dude. No worries!” Finn gives Puck a thumbs up. “Nobody’s thinking about Valentine’s right before Christmas.”

“Did we ever settle on a price?” Kurt asks.

“Fifteen for singles and twenty-five for couples,” Rachel answers promptly. “And we got a donation of printing, so the tickets will be very nice looking.”

Schue appears to be thinking deeply for a moment. “Any other news about fundraising?”

“I think we should sell doughnuts,” Puck announces. “Like those Krispy Kreme doughnuts.”

Quinn looks skeptical. “Yeah, because more junk food is exactly what this school needs.”

“You don’t have to eat them, just sell them,” Puck says to her, smile fixed on his face. “They sell them cheap to groups and then we sell them at regular price. You know people would pay anything for food just before first period.”

Finn shoots Puck a look. “Quinn, could you maybe talk with Rachel about the food for the dance? She was having a hard time deciding between, I dunno, some kind of tiny cakes or something.”

“Yes,” Rachel nods slowly. “Petit fours.”

“Okay, well, great,” Schue says into the somewhat tense atmosphere. “Puck, can you get more information for us and we can look at doing that within the first three weeks of 2012?”

“Yeah, sure,” Puck nods. “No problem.”

“Good, good. Who wants to sing a holiday song?”

Finn raises his hand. “If I can get a little backup from the girls, I think some U2 might work.”

“U2? All right, let’s hear it, Finn.” Schue steps to the side and gestures to the front of the room with his hand.

Santana and Brittany hop up and head to the front. Finn leans over and whispers something to both of them, then to Brad, and then says, “Puck, dude. Bat guitar!”

Puck snorts and stands up, grabbing his guitar and leaning against the piano. Finn sits down at the drum set and launches into an energetic rendition of U2’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” The guitar part is ridiculously easy, in Puck’s mind, so he mainly listens to Finn’s singing and watches the rest of the club.

Quinn has a strained smile. Whatever bug crawled up her butt obviously didn’t die, just got distracted by Finn and Rachel’s petit fours. Sam’s nodding in time with the music, smiling, and Rachel’s gazing rapturously at Finn, who winks at her as he sings and drums.

 _The snow's coming down  
I'm watching it fall  
Watching the people around  
Baby please come home_

 _The church bells in town  
They're ringing a song  
What a happy sound  
Baby please come home_

Schue is smiling broadly as he listens to the song, probably because he was actually alive when U2 first sang it.

 _They're singing deck the halls  
But it's not like Christmas at all  
I remember when you were here  
And all the fun we had last year_

 _If there was a way  
I'd hold back these tears  
But it's Christmas day  
Baby please come home  
Ohh..._

“That was great, Finn,” Schue says, clapping as the song comes to an end. “Nice job backing him up, guys.” He looks around. “Anyone else have a song for today?”

“If I may?” Kurt stands up. “I have a song I’d like to perform.”

“Of course, Kurt.”

Kurt nods in Brad’s direction and smiles slightly before starting to sing.

 _Have yourself a merry little Christmas  
Let your heart be light  
From now on, our troubles will be out of sight._

 _Have yourself a merry little Christmas  
Make the Yule-tide gay,  
From now on, our troubles will be miles away._

Brad improvises a longer bridge after that verse, before Kurt continues singing.

 _Here we are as in olden days  
Happy golden days of yore  
Faithful friends who are dear to us  
Gather near to us once more_

 _Through the years we all will be together  
If the Fates allow  
Hang a shining star upon the highest bow  
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now_

Everyone applauds, even Schue and Quinn, and Kurt bites his lip just a little, obviously pleased. “Great job, Kurt, that was really nice,” Schue says. “Anyone else?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a song,” Sam says. “It’s ‘Joseph, Better You Than Me.’” There’s some scattered laughter at the title, and then Sam walks up to the front with his own guitar.

 _Well your eyes just haven't been the same, Joseph  
Are you bad at dealing with the fame, Joseph  
There's a pale moonshine, above you  
Do you see both sides, do they shove you, around  
Is the touchstone forcing you to hide, Joseph  
Are the rumors eating you alive, Joseph  
When the holy night is upon you  
Will you do what's right, the position is yours  
From the temple walls to the New York night  
Our decisions rest on a child  
When she took her stand  
Did she hold your hand  
Will your faith stand still or run away  
Run away_

It’s a slow song but pretty, overall, and Sam does a good job with it.

 _Better you than me, Joseph (Better you than me)  
Better you than me  
Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, Joseph  
Than me  
Better you than me  
Better you than me (Better you, better you, better you)  
Than me  
Well your eyes just haven't been the same, Joseph _

“I’ve never heard that song before,” Schue admits. “Great job, Sam. Nice choice. So tomorrow, don’t forget, we’ll be doing our Sectionals set in assembly tomorrow, after we do some more holiday songs, all right?” He waits for a few nods before continuing. “Great. See you tomorrow!”

 

There are even more people staring at Puck and Rachel on Friday morning, and it’s enough to make Puck start to feel paranoid. “Why are they staring so much?” he asks Rachel under his breath. “I can’t even tell if it’s you or me they’re staring at.”

“I don’t know either,” Rachel whispers back. “Are they doing it to you the rest of the day?”

Puck shakes his head. “Not that I’ve noticed. You?”

“No.” Rachel stares right back at the next person to look at them, and the girl flinches and hurries down the hall in the opposite direction. “Do you think it’s happening to anyone else?” She tightens her hand on Puck’s arm as Jewfro approaches.

“Rachel. Puckerman.” He pushes his glasses up and smiles his oily little smile. “Any comments before I take this story live?”

“What story?” Puck looks at Jewfro like he might a specimen from bio lab sophomore year. No, he’s actually not even that interesting.

Jewfro just smiles more widely. “No comment, then. All right. See you later, Rachel.”

Puck exchanges a glance with Rachel as they turn the corner to the choir room. “That was weird.”

“It was decidedly odd, yes,” Rachel agrees. “Oh! I’m going to sing the dreidel song today, I think, if you’d like to join me.”

Puck shakes his head. “I’ll have to sing it enough with Hannah next week.” They walk into the room where Schue is not yet there, thankfully, and Puck flops into the seat next to Kurt on the back row. “Jewfro said anything to you lately?”

“What? No.” Kurt raises an eyebrow. “Why?”

“He just stopped Rachel and I in the hallway. I don’t know, people have been staring at us the past few days when we walk here after English. It’s weird.”

“What did he want?”

“To know if we had any comments before he ran the story. No idea what story.”

“Odd.” Kurt shrugs and starts to say something else as Schue walks into the room, then closes his mouth as Schue starts to speak.

“I think we only have time for a couple of songs today, and then we should go get ready for the assembly. Who’s up first?”

“Mr. Schuester, I would like to sing a traditional Hanukkah song for all of us.”

“Sure, Rachel, let’s hear it.”

Rachel beams and then launches into the song a capella.

 _I have a little dreidel  
I made it out of clay  
And when it's dry and ready  
Then dreidel I shall play!  
Oh - dreidel, dreidel, dreidel  
I made it out of clay  
And when it's dry and ready  
Then dreidel I shall play!_

She continues singing through every verse that Puck can imagine, and he’s very glad Hannah’s not present to hear all of them. It was only last year that he got her down to one repeat per night.

“Well, thanks, Rachel,” Schue smiles and nods at her. “It’s good we remember there are other holidays happening this time of the year.”

“I have a song, Mr. Schuester,” Mercedes says with a smile. “If that’s all right?”

“Sure, sure, let’s hear it.”

Mercedes walks to the front of the room and says something quietly to Brad before beginning to sing.

 _Said the night wind to the little lamb,  
"Do you see what I see?  
Way up in the sky, little lamb,  
Do you see what I see?  
A star, a star, dancing in the night  
With a tail as big as a kite,  
With a tail as big as a kite."_

It’s a slow, haunting version of the song, just Mercedes’ voice and the piano, and the rest of the room is absolutely still, transfixed.

 _Said the king to the people everywhere,  
"Listen to what I say!  
Pray for peace, people, everywhere,  
Listen to what I say!  
The Child, the Child sleeping in the night  
He will bring us goodness and light,  
He will bring us goodness and light."_

“Oh, wow, Mercedes, just wow,” Schue says over the loud applause. “That was amazing.”

“Thanks.” She grins as she takes her seat.

“I think we do have a little more time–anyone?”

“Mike and I have a song,” Tina says. “It will totally change the mood, though!”

“That’s fine,” Schue assures them, and they stand up, nodding at Brad and the jazz band.

 _Grandma got run over by reindeer  
Walking home from our house Christmas Ever  
You can say there’s no such thing as Santa  
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe_

The guys are the first to start chuckling, and then the girls slowly join in, until at least even Quinn is smiling. Most of them start singing along by the end.

 _I’ve warned all my friends and neighbors  
Better watch out for yourselves  
They should never give a license  
To a man who drives a sleigh and plays with elves_

“That was great, guys,” Schues laughs. “All right, let’s go get ready for the assembly!”

Puck has to concede that it is pretty decent of Figgins to try to acknowledge their victory, even if it does involve changing clothes in the middle of the day. Miraculously, neither he nor Kurt have any visible marks; miraculous since the day before was the first day since... well, Puck can’t remember actually, he just knows there’s been a _lot_ of sex and a lot of nakedness and he is 100% on board with that.

Given that Finn elbows him in the middle of the bathroom, he might’ve been staring at Kurt a little too intently, so Puck shifts his gaze to the tile floor and finishes changing. They head down the hall just before the bell rings and wait in the ‘backstage area’ for Figgins to announce them.

“And now, our own New Directions, who recently won the 2011 Western Ohio Show Choir Sectionals competition in Columbus, will perform their winning numbers. First is ‘Willing & Wonderful,’ an original composition, followed by ‘Seasons of Love’ and ‘I Gotta Feeling.’ Thank you.”

The performance goes off without a hitch, no interruptions or fire drills or anything of the sort, and the applause is just this side of lukewarm, which Puck figures is pretty good. They change out of their costumes, and this time Puck just stares at the wall the entire time, since apparently he has little control over where his eyes go if he doesn’t think about it.

After they’ve changed, though, it’s time to leave, which means more nakedness and sex, at least until Carole or Burt arrive, but that’s hours away, and Kurt’s promised there are leftover enchiladas for lunch, too. They walk out of the school, bumping shoulders and probably standing way too close as they grin at each other, but all Puck can really think is that for the moment, life is damn good.

 

Carole presses them both into service chopping peppers, onions, and mushrooms while she mixes ground chicken with a bunch of stuff and shapes it into patties. “Thank you, boys,” she smiles at them. “I know we have to eat fast tonight, so this is such a help.”

“No problem,” Puck nods, handing her the last of the peppers.

“Did your performance for the school go all right?”

“Yes,” Kurt nods. “It went surprisingly well.”

“What went well?” Finn asks, entering the kitchen and tossing his flannel shirt over the back of a kitchen chair.

“Your performance today, sweetie,” Carole answers, walking over to kiss his cheek. “How was school?”

“Educational?” Finn says, like maybe that’s what he thinks Carole wants to hear. “Long.”

“And practice?” Carole follows up. “Excited for the game tonight?”

Finn nods. “Excited and nervous.”

“You’ll be fine,” Kurt says, waving his hand sort of airily. “For starters, your opponents have ugly uniforms. See? Already ahead.”

“Uh, thanks, man,” Finn answers, not looking reassured. “I don’t know that the uniforms have much to do with it, but I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“It undermines their confidence. They look in the mirror and think, ‘Dear god, I have to go out in front of people in _this_ ,’” Kurt attempts to explain, looking between Puck and Finn and then at Carole. “Carole? Back me up here.”

“Oh, well, that does make sense?” Carole says. “Here, Kurt, can you flip these, and Finn, you can get started setting the table.”

“All I ever get to do anymore is set the table,” Finn grumbles. “I can flip stuff. It’s not complicated.”

“Are you sure you need to be around an open flame, though, dude?” Puck grins. “I remember what happened in chem lab last year.”

“That was a one-time thing. And there were extended circumstances.”

“Extenuating?” Kurt wrinkles his forehead.

“Whatever,” Finn says, dismissively. “I just mean that I don’t, like, _always_ catch stuff on fire.”

“And we’re very thankful for that, honey,” Carole assures him. “But the table still needs to be set, so you can eat and get back to the stadium.”

“Fine,” Finn huffs. “I am gonna be able to feed myself without your help when I go to college, you know,” he adds, addressing Kurt and Puck. “I won’t even catch anything on fire.”

Kurt turns to Puck with a funny look on his face. “Huh. We’ll have an extra Finn-portion of food.”

Puck snorts. “Which means two extra portions. Lunch.”

“Ha ha, you guys,” Finn snaps, rolling his eyes. As he continues setting the table, they can hear the sound of the garage door opening as Burt pulls in.

“Sorry I’m running late,” Burt calls, as he enters the house. He leans into the kitchen. “We had someone bring a car in right before closing, thought it was his alignment. Turned out he had some pretty serious undercarriage damage. No idea what happened to cause it, either!”

Kurt turns from the stove slowly to stare at Puck, who puts his hands up defensively. “I swear, I didn’t get the chance.”

“Are you sure?” Kurt asks, clearly fighting back laughter.

“Pretty sure,” Puck answers and then starts to chuckle.

“There a reason why you’d even have to ask your boyfriend if he wrecked someone’s undercarriage?” Burt asks, amused.

“Kurt said he was bored with all the oil changes, so we tried to figure out a way to make things more interesting,” Puck answers. “Best I could think of was damaging the road so those low-riding cars and trucks would get caught on it.”

“Bored with oil changes, huh?” Burt says. “So I guess you’d maybe get excited if I said it looks like we might have an engine rebuild coming into the shop next week?”

“Yessss,” Kurt answers, drawing out the word into at least three syllables.

“You think you could find time in your busy schedule to help with something like that?” Burt asks, raising one eyebrow. “I mean, me and Danny could probably handle it just fine if you’ve got other--”

“School’s out after Tuesday!” Kurt interrupts him. “Remember?”

Burt snorts a laugh. “Kurt, you never stop amazing me. Sure, sure, we’ll save some of it for you. Not _all_ of it, but you can work on the assembly at least.”

Kurt bounces on the balls of his feet and claps his hands before springing forward and impulsively throwing his arms around Burt. “Thank you!”

“You’re so weird,” Finn says, shaking his head.

Kurt just looks over at him and sticks his tongue out at him. “Says the boys who insists that uniforms don’t matter in football.”

“All right, you two,” Carole mock-scolds. “It’s time to eat. Noah, if you could, yes, thank you, Finn, take the sour cream and the cheese. Yes, yes, sit down.”

They all take their seats and start piling their plates with food. “This looks great, hon,” Burt says. “Beef is a nice change.”

“Don’t forget to eat plenty of the vegetables, Dad,” Kurt says after half a beat, as if he _tried_ not to say anything, but couldn’t help it.

“Yeah, we sliced ‘em painstakingly,” Puck adds.

“Ok, ok,” Burt says, doubling up on the vegetables, but not with as much enthusiasm as he showed for the meat. “I swear, sometimes it’s like you’re the dad and I’m the kid.”

‘I guess that way you know all those years of telling me to eat my vegetables stuck,” Kurt shrugs.

“Yeah, yeah,” Burt answers, but his tone is affectionate. “One of these days you’ll have your own kids to torment with vegetables, and you’ll have had plenty of practice.”

“Maybe my child or children will have impeccable taste and love vegetables. It’s possible.”

“I like the vegetables,” Finn says. “They’re good.”

“Good, honey,” Carole smiles. “I’ll have to remember everyone liked this meal.”

“Oh, so speaking of food,” Finn begins. “Do you think that maybe you could make those cookies with the jam and the shapes cut out of them? Not, like, _now_ , I mean. For the PFLAG party next week.”

“The linzer cookies? Sure, I don’t see why not,” Carole nods. “How many do you think you will need?”

“Personally?” Finn asks, grinning. “Like a dozen or something. Everybody else? No clue. Kurt?”

“We’ve been having thirty or so most weeks, but I expect there will be more since there’s more food. Say forty?” Kurt guesses. “Forty kids, that is.”

“Wow, that’s a lot,” Carole says, clearly startled. “That’s so wonderful!”

“Mercedes actually told me that she thought there were only four of us there that weren’t straight,” Kurt adds.

Finn snorts a laugh. “Seriously? I mean, even I figured out there’s a lot more than four of you.”

“So what you’re saying,” Puck grins, tone teasing, “is that you found someone with worse gaydar than yours?”

“Oh, don’t rub it in,” Kurt grumbles, wrinkling his nose at Puck. Puck just keeps laughing and watches Kurt try to pretend that he’s not amused.

“You two are in a good mood,” Burt says. “The performance go well today?”

“Oh, um. Yes?” Kurt answers almost as if he’s asking the question instead of replying to one. “It’s just been a good week.” Puck takes a huge bite of his burger before he makes a face or says something that he probably shouldn’t say.

 

The regional final is against Harding, up from Marion, and apparently their post-season record looks a lot like McKinley's, which means the game should at least be interesting. Puck and Kurt settle into their usual row, a blanket tucked around Kurt and coffee in both their hands. The row fills up quickly, excited chatter up and down the line plus another attempt on Tina's part to get Kurt to go shopping with them the next day.

"Mike said that Harding really likes to rush the quarterback," Tina confides to Kurt after making sure Rachel's engaged in her conversation with Artie. "If Finn gets sacked, we're going to have keep her calm."

Kurt nods. "Yes. You and Mercedes should go to the bathroom and she'll slide over here while you're gone. It'll be easier if she's stuck in the middle."

"Ooh, good idea." Tina nods. "We'll get food while we're up. Hot dogs?"

"Please," Kurt nods. "Chili footlongs for both of us," he adds, gesturing to include Puck.

"Mmm. With cheese?"

"Definitely," Puck interjects.

The game starts not long after Tina and Mercedes return. McKinley gets out with a score early, but then Harding matches it on their next possession. The teams are pretty evenly matched, but the Titans do seem to have the edge, right up until the point where their left tackle screws up magnificently, the Presidents break through the line, and Finn does, in fact, get sacked, at which point Rachel screams.

Sure enough, Kurt does have to practically throw himself across her, and Puck provides a quiet commentary on how everything is fine, and look, see, Finn's already standing up and ready to run the next play, he's _okay_. Beiste is in fine form, yelling at the left tackle and gesturing wildly.

Whatever she says, he looks chastised even behind the helmet, and when the Titans go into halftime, they're down by three points. "I am glad I am not in that locker room," Puck breaths to Kurt.

Kurt tilts his head a little and quirks an eyebrow, lips barely turned up. "Are you?"

Puck stops and purses his lips. "Yeah. I really am. I mean, I kinda miss the games, and I'm going to have to figure out something to do physically at some point, but I can't imagine practicing over the break or going back to how things were in October." He shrugs. "But right now I'm good sitting up here." He grins.

"Good." Kurt's shoulder bumps into his for a long second before they have to convince Rachel that no, she shouldn't go check on Finn in the locker room.

The teams return to the field while they still have Rachel wedged onto the stands, and within five minutes, McKinley is back on top. The Presidents try to execute a second sack, but this time they can't make it through Karofsky, whose block is, Puck has to admit, pretty sweet. The yardage gain isn't huge, but it gets them the necessary first down, and the stands explode.

Harding scores one final time late in the third quarter before the Titans take it in for two additional touchdowns in the fourth, and they win the regional championship by eleven points.

"Next stop, state!" Tina cheers, and the girls whoop and holler as the stands empty, everyone pouring onto the field.

“...and that’s how it’s done. _That_ is how it’s _done_ ,” Finn’s saying, as they approach him. He’s not addressing anyone in particular, just talking out loud to anyone around him. “You think knocking me down’s a problem. Knocking me down doesn’t do _shit_ , because I get back up again. Oh, yeah, you heard me. I get the fuck back up again. That’s right!” There’s a few hoots and claps from the people around him. “I’m like motherfucking Chumbawumba. Right back up again!” He’s gesticulating broadly, pointing his finger at random people as he talks. When Finn sees Rachel, he grabs her around the waist and hoists her up in the air, spinning around with her. As he lowers her back down, she wraps her arms around his neck and just sort of dangles there.

“It’s the new winter accessory trend,” Kurt laughs. “A Rachel necklace.”

Puck laughs, too. “Yeah, I’m not so sure that’ll catch on!” He catches Finn’s eye and gives him a thumbs up.

Finn grins and twirls around with Rachel again. She giggles as he sets her back on her feet. “Congratulations!” she gushes happily.

“Two more to go!” Finn says.

“Guess what?” Beiste’s voice booms over the crowd. “Home field advantage, we’re playing Athens!”

“Yes!” Sam’s the first to react, and then there’s more scattered cheering amongst the team.

“The Bulldogs are going _down_!” Finn whoops.

“Lima Bean in thirty!” Mike hollers over the crowd.

“I am the king of all I survey!” Finn yells in return. “All the coffee in all the land will be mine!”

“So we should go _now_ ,” Kurt says to Puck. “Before Finn Kong steals it all.”

“Whoo!” Finn screams from a huddle of players. “We kick _ass_!”

“I think he’ll be occupied for awhile,” Santana says dryly from behind them.

“And here I was going reassure him that I still liked ass,” Puck muses. “He could make that chapter four.”

“Let me guess, it’s called ‘Just When You Thought There Was No More Ass’?”

“Something like that,” Puck agrees.

“Then let’s get our asses over to the Lima Bean,” Kurt concludes, and they start winding their way through the crowd.

Puck laughs and can’t resist one more comment. “Our _excellent_ asses.”

 

Part of Puck doesn’t even want to go to the center, not once they’re on the road and outside Lima. In the end, though, he’s grudgingly glad they did. There aren’t many places that he can sit with his back against Kurt’s chest, or just not think before touching Kurt. Someone asks if he’s still not out, which makes him stop and think for a minute. Somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, his mental impression has shifted from being closeted with a few places he’s out to being out with a few places he’s still not.

It may not seem like a big difference from the outside, but it feels different, somehow.

They spend several hours there but beg off before dinner and make their way to a Thai place Kurt found online before heading back up to Lima. Puck’s not really surprised when Kurt hands him the keys and climbs into the passenger seat, angling his body towards Puck. “You should keep the Nav most nights over the break,” Kurt muses. “I can ride to work with Dad and you can come get me for a change.”

“You sure?”

“Mmmhmm.” Kurt nods. “You should keep it tonight, too. I know you live close to work and everything, but it’s still really early and pretty cold out.” He sighs a little. “I’ve tried to figure out a way to make it work while school’s in, but I haven’t come up with a solution. Yet.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Puck protests weakly.

“I know.” Kurt smiles.

Keeping the Nav does unfortunately mean that there’s no need to go to his apartment rather than Kurt’s house, and even though Puck’s pretty sure there wasn’t a chance of his mom being asleep at nine-thirty on a Saturday night, he _knows_ that Burt and Carole won’t be asleep on a Saturday night.

And, in fact, Burt is ensconced in his recliner when they walk through the house, and Carole’s in the kitchen. “That you, Kurt?” Burt calls, before they’ve even through the door.

“No, it’s his evil twin,” Kurt calls back. “I’m here to spend all your hard-earned money on high-priced clothing–oh, wait. I guess it is Kurt.”

“Real funny, kid,” Burt says, with a snort of laughter. “You have a nice time at the whatcha-callit?”

“Pretty good,” Kurt answers as they stop in the doorway to the living room. “Don’t leave for the shop without me in the morning, okay?”

“Something wrong with the Nav?” Burt asks, obviously concerned.

“No,” Kurt replies calmly. “Puck’s going to take it tonight.”

“Mmhmm,” Burt replies tersely, lifting one eyebrow. “That right?”

“It’s pretty cold at 5:30 these days,” Kurt says, obviously taking care to make his voice light.

Burt shrugs. “It’s your car. Just remember, your boyfriend wrecks it, I’m not paying the deductible.”

“I think it’s fair to say that if I wrecked it, Kurt’d kill me,” Puck says wryly.

This time, Burt laughs out loud. “I’d argue with you about that, but I’ve actually _met_ Kurt.”

“I wouldn’t kill you!” Kurt protests. “Seriously maiming you, however, would still be an option on the table.”

“Aww, you’re so sweet to me,” Puck laughs.

Burt just shakes his head at Puck and Kurt. Puck tugs gently at Kurt’s hand and they head up the stairs to collapse onto Kurt’s bed. “I wouldn’t really maim you,” Kurt says thoughtfully. “Nothing permanent, anyway. And that would only be if it was your fault.”

“Oh, well, that’s reassuring,” Puck responds dryly.

“I know! I’m so understanding and gracious.”

“Mmmhmm.” Puck presses his lips to the skin just behind Kurt’s ear, and Kurt wriggles and molds against him. “Gracious?” he whispers into Kurt’s ear.

“Ye–yes,” Kurt finishes the word almost shakily. “Puck...” his voice trails off, and he hooks his leg over Puck’s, in direct contradiction of what he says next. “We can’t–I mean–”

Puck decides to ignore Kurt’s unconvincing protests, and puts his mouth over Kurt’s mid-word, thrusting his tongue inside before Kurt can react. He’s still for a moment before he responds, both hands going to the back of Puck’s head, pulling Puck closer and then holding him in place.

Puck cups Kurt’s jaw in one hand, urging movement that changes the angle between them slightly and lets Puck’s tongue explore a little deeper. Puck’s other hand skates down Kurt’s side and rests on his hip, and as they keep kissing, one of them whimpers.

He’s really not sure how long they lie on the bed, making out and confining their touches to over clothing. They shift positions several times and when they finally break apart for more than a few seconds, Kurt’s lips are a little redder and a little fuller than usual. Puck grins and smooths his thumb over them. His lips probably look similar. Kurt just smiles and turns on his side, pressing against Puck.

“I should go soon,” Puck says reluctantly. “Should.”

Kurt wrinkles his nose. “Less than two weeks.”

“Yeah,” Puck agrees quietly. He brushes his lips across Kurt’s forehead. “You sleep too, blue eyes.”

“Okay,” Kurt agrees. “Be good, baby.”

“I’m always good, K.”

 

“We’re laaaate!” Kurt sings out, giggling a little as they hurry down the stairs. “We’re really late! And Finn’s going to say we don’t rate!”

“But we’ll tell him haters gotta hate?”

“He’s just sad because he’s straight!”

“And can’t have us to date!”

Puck and Kurt both give up at that point, breaking into full-blown laughter as they climb into the Nav. “He’s never going to believe us.”

“It’s not our fault we told Hannah we’d make smoothies.”

“And that you didn’t know the lid on the blender was broken,” Puck chuckles.

“I didn’t!” Kurt shakes his head. “Luckily I had on multiple layers. And my top layer was black.”

“Strawberry smoothie’s a good look on us.”

“It was tasty, anyway.”

When they pull up at the Hudmel house, Finn is standing on the porch, looking exasperated and cold. “Where _were_ you guys? I almost had to put out one of those police things for you.”

“There was an incident,” Kurt says primly. “It was not in any way my fault.”

“It wasn’t mine _either_ ,” Puck points out. “I did _try_ to warn you about the lid.”

“ _After_ I had hit ‘blend’!”

Finn’s eyes widen and he puts up his hands. “I seriously don’t need to know this stuff!”

Puck turns in his seat and raises his eyebrows. “Hannah wanted a smoothie, dude.”

“Ohh, ok,” Finn says, relieved. “So, you’re late because you had to make Hannah a smoothie? I don’t think that’s a good enough reason.”

“No, we’re late because Puck’s blender has a broken lid, which I did _not_ know about. So we and the kitchen became...”

“Very berry.”

Finn nods knowingly. “Ouch. Yeah, ok. I had something like that happen with the food processor once. Apparently you can’t use it to grate cheese with the lid off. Who knew, right?”

“You aren’t helping your case about cooking,” Kurt says wryly as they pull up in front of the Berry home. “And we’re only a couple of minutes late.”

“What’s that in your hair, dude?” Finn asks, leaning up.

“Oh, good grief.” Kurt sighs. “Don’t tell me it got back there, too.”

“Was it strawberry? I think that’s strawberry,” Finn exclaims, poking at the back of Kurt’s hair with his finger. “Definitely a piece of strawberry.”

“Lovely.”

Puck reaches over and pulls it off. “Yeah, more strawberry. Damn. That blender’s powerful.” They climb out of the car and head towards the front door, and Puck flicks the strawberry bit into the grey snow alongside the sidewalk.

“Hey, there!” Hiram says as he swings the door open before they can even knock. “Everyone’s downstairs already. Everything all right? I swear, I think Rachel wanted to contact missing persons, but I told her it was only three minutes past seven, and–”

“Hello, boys,” Leroy says, clasping Hiram by the shoulders. “Rachel and the rest of the gang are downstairs. Don’t let us keep you.”

“Thanks, Leroy, Hiram,” Kurt nods at each of them, leading the way down the stairs into the cacophony of nine high school seniors about to go on winter break.

“Hey! It’s Snap, Crackle, and Pop!” Brittany pipes up, before they’ve even made it down the stairs.

“Snap!” Kurt proclaims. Puck laughs and nods.

“Crackle,” he agrees.

“Why do I _always_ have to be Pop?” Finn whines.

“Where were you guys?” Rachel exclaims.

“There was a blender incident,” Finn says, the expression on his face serious.

“It was lowercase-b berry messy,” Puck adds.

“Kurt had strawberry in his hair,” Finn offers.

“It’s true,” Kurt admits with a sigh. “It was everywhere.”

Rachel just looks between the three of them as if she can’t quite decide if the story is true or an elaborate tale to cover up some other incident. Santana smirks.

“Ok, well, so enough about cereal and blender accidents,” Finn says. “Does anybody have any ideas for our third song?” He looks around the room pointedly.

“I’ve been considering it, and I really think that despite its poor reputation, especially amongst those the age of Mr. Schue, the seminal number from _Titanic_ could make an endearing and engaging group number with numerous small solos,” Rachel says with a smile.

“What she means is ‘My Heart Will Go On,’” Kurt informs them in the silence that follows.

“Oh hell no,” Mercedes snorts.

“Sorry, Rachel, but I’m going to use my veto power,” Finn says. “I have that, right?” He looks at Kurt and Puck for support.

“Yes sir, dictator sir,” Puck grins.

“I’m afraid I have to agree with Finn,” Artie says. “I just don’t think we have the collective testicular fortitude to pull off that song with our manhoods intact.”

“There is nothing inherently emasculating about Celine Dion!” Rachel protests.

“Sweetie,” Kurt says gently. “Even I have to disagree with that.”

Rachel pouts but doesn’t say anything else.

“I think we should seriously give some consideration to Lonely Island’s “On a Boat,” Artie suggests. “It a comedy gold-mine, along with having some pretty excellent music, and we won’t have to worry about anybody else using that.”

“Maybe we should do a medley of their songs,” Puck says wryly. “We could include ‘Dick in a Box,’ too. Finn, add that to your book.”

“Dude, let’s make sure to include ‘Jizz in My Pants,’ too,” Finn adds. “Or, you know, we _don’t_ use songs where we’d have to bleep every third word. Sorry, Artie.”

“It’s a goldmine for chapters five and six both, man.” Puck smirks at Finn.

“Chapters of what?” Sam asks. “Finn’s writing a book?”

“We aren’t talking about the book,” Finn says sternly, wagging his finger at Puck. “And no, I am _not_ writing a book.”

“You should,” Kurt says, shaking his head. “I did have some thoughts on arranging ‘Marchin’ On,’ which isn’t a third song, but.”

“Ok, we’ll keep thinking about the third song. I know one’ll come to us,” Finn says. “Kurt, go on.”

Kurt launches into an explanation, going through the song stanza by stanza, then looks around the room expectantly with one eyebrow raised. “Thoughts?”

Finn nods slowly, twisting his mouth up in thought. “Yeah. Yeah, I like that.”

“Let’s try it,” Tina says with a smile. “And Mike, you can think more in depth about the choreography with these vocal arrangements.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Mike nods in agreement.

“Kurt, let’s put your phone on the speaker and do it!” Rachel enthuses. Kurt complies, and they run through the song with Kurt’s suggestions in place.

“We are so awesome,” Sam says to Mercedes as soon as the song ends. “Our suggestion completely rocks.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re made of solid gold coolness,” Finn says. “I think that we’ve got a good start on this one. I’ll be honest, though, the one that’s kind of freaking me out is ‘Tubthumping.’ I mean, the song is cool, but it sounds like the kind of thing where I can break my neck or Rachel’s nose.”

“You’ve got two and a half months to figure out the choreography,” Mike grins. “I actually have a few ideas for the chorus, we could go over those now?”

“I like dancing!” Brittany says, standing and pulling Santana back up onto her feet.

“You heard the lady,” Finn says, with a shrug. “I guess we’re giving it a try.” He looks dubious.

“It won’t be bad, Finn,” Rachel says soothingly. “It’s just a first run-through!”

“Exactly,” Mike agrees, and then starts to demonstrate, pulling Kurt, Artie, Brittany, Santana, and Puck up to help him. After two run-throughs, everyone joins in, and they stumble through the admittedly more complex choreography.

“I’m definitely going to break somebody’s something,” Finn groans. “I’m just not sure whose what.”

“As long as it’s not–”

“ _Dude_!” Finn interrupts Puck. “Enough with the ass!”

“Wasn’t going to say ass,” Puck grins, speaking truthfully. “I told you. Everyone thinks the worst of me.”

“Mmhmm,” Finn mutters. “No reason for _that_ at all, is there, Ass-Man?”

“Nope, there’s not,” Puck says cheerfully.

“Are we going to practice during the holidays?” Brittany asks. “I mean, not this week, but between Christmas and New Year? Because we might forget if we don’t practice until all the way _next year_.”

Puck looks over at Finn, slightly alarmed, as Rachel forges ahead. “The last night of Hanukkah isn’t until the twenty-seventh, so maybe one of the days after that.” Puck shifts his gaze to Kurt’s, whose eyes are wide. He’s clearly both thinking and freaking out at the same time.

“Uh,” Finn’s eyes flicker from Puck to Kurt and back again. “No, I don’t think we need to do that. We should, um, just spend time with our...uh, families. Or whatever. Right? Don’t you think?”

“I’ll be out of town until midday on New Year’s Eve, anyway,” Mercedes comments. “I think Finn’s right.”

“Party at my house New Year’s Eve,” Santana comments almost absently. “Don’t come before eight, stay as long as you like, as long as you’re gone by noon the next day.”

“And on that note, I guess we’ll wrap it up,” Finn says.

 

The next day’s walk between English and glee rehearsal is even more bizarre than the week before. A random girl walks up to Puck and Rachel and says “I can’t believe you’re flaunting it!” before stalking away. Rachel looks at Puck confused and shrugs.

“I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Me either,” Puck admits, shrugging. They walk into the choir room and Mercedes and Tina fall silent, staring at them.

“Maybe it _is_ true,” Mercedes says with a shrug.

Finn enters the choir room almost immediately behind Puck. “What’s true?”

“Haven’t you read ben Israel’s blog?” Tina says, frowning. “He’s saying...”

Brittany and Kurt walk into the room together. “I read it,” Brittany says. “It competes with Fondue for Two, and it’s important to keep up with the competition. I don’t think it’s true. Jacob is just very bad at the game.”

“What?” Kurt asks. “What isn’t true?” His eyes get a little wider at the mention of the game, and Puck frowns.

Quinn, Artie, Santana, Sam, and Mike all come trickling into the room. Quinn gives Puck and Rachel a scathing look before she sits down.

“What crawled up her butt and died this time?” Puck mutters under his breath to Rachel, who stifles a giggle. The room is otherwise silent, some people exchanging glances and others looking confused. “Yeah, okay, what is or isn’t true?” Puck finally says into the quiet classroom. “What’d Jewfro write?”

“So I guess denying it is the approach you’re planning on taking,” Quinn says, pursing her lips.

“Denying _what_?” Puck demands. “Would somebody just explain what the fuck is going on?”

“Ben Israel’s blog says that you and Rachel have been secretly having an affair,” Quinn explains, her tone almost triumphant. “I guess old habits die hard, don’t they?”

Puck guffaws and looks over at Rachel, who’s similarly giggling. Kurt’s biting down on his lip, trying not laugh. “Dude,” Puck gasps out. “That’s hilarious.”

Finn, always a little slow on the uptake, stares at Quinn. He looks over Puck and Rachel, then back at Quinn, then (inexplicably to everyone else in the room, obviously) over at Kurt, and then back at Quinn, before bursting into such a hard peal of laughter than he doubles over, out of breath. “Wow,” he forces out, between laughs. “Wow. That’s. Wow.”

“Where did he get the, uh, ‘evidence’ for this?” Puck asks, still laughing.

“He has pictures,” Mercedes offers. “Of you two walking in the halls.”

“Like this?” Rachel demonstrates how she usually tucks her hand into the crook of Puck’s elbow. “We walk from English to here every day,” she says, shaking her head. “I didn’t know that was a _relationship_.” She looks up at Puck and laughs again. “No offense intended of course, Noah.”

Finn is still gasping in laughter, to the point that he starts to choke on his own saliva, and Kurt comes over and whacks him on the back, clearly a little harder than is absolutely necessary.

“So, what you’re saying is that none of the people actually involved are aware of any such relationship?” Artie says slowly, readjusting his glasses.

“Rachel’s like a younger, irritating cousin,” Puck shrugs. “Sorry, Rachel, but you know it’s true.”

“You’re like an older uncle or cousin,” Rachel agrees. “Somewhat troublesome but usually welcome at the table.”

Quinn narrows her eyes. “Just because they’re denying it and Finn doesn’t seem to be aware of what’s happening, that doesn’t mean it’s not true. I mean, let’s face it, Finn’s more than a little gullible.”

“Your hypocrisy is overwhelming,” Kurt say to her icily. “And your comments about anyone’s gullibility are not welcome.” He stares at her with one eyebrow raised, expression hard.

“Let’s see,” Quinn continues, ignoring Kurt. “It wouldn’t be the first time Rachel’s gone behind Finn’s back with Puck, would it? Or the first time Puck’s gone behind Finn’s back? Or the first time Finn’s believed whatever story he’s handed? It’s not hypocrisy to say that I’m well aware of how this dynamic works.”

Kurt steps towards her, eyes flashing and his face a mask. “You need to _shut the fuck up_ right now,” he hisses. “Because I am _this close_ to forcibly doing it. I don’t want to hit a lady, but all I see right now is a bitch.”

“I don’t have to sit here and let you talk to me like that,” Quinn answers, in her prom queen voice. “I really don’t have--”

“Then leave,” Kurt shrugs carelessly. “See if anyone stops you.”

Quinn stands, looking back at Santana and Brittany. Brittany squirms in her seat, but doesn’t look back at Quinn. Santana shrugs and smirks slightly. “Queer solidarity, Quinnie.”

Quinn looks around the room, stunned to not find any support. Slinging the strap of her bag over her shoulder, she starts striding towards the door of the choir room, where she almost collides with Schue.

“Whoa there, Quinn!” Schue says with a smile. “It’s time for our gift exchange!”

Quinn rifles through her bag and pulls out a small wrapped package. She flings it at Kurt--not hard, but dramatically-- and continues her storm out of the choir room.

“It lacked true conviction, and her timing was poor,” Rachel comments, almost clinically.

“I guess we know who the real HBIC is in this room,” Santana laughs. “All hail the Junior Prom Queen.”

Kurt presses his lips together for a moment and then grins slightly. “Damn, but that felt cathartic somehow.”

“That was so ridiculous,” Finn snorts. “I mean, who would believe _Puck_ and _Rachel_.” He shakes his head. “People are so stupid.”

“Who knew that walking between classes with a friend was evidence of a torrid affair?” Puck snorts. “Everyone, don’t be friendly with anyone else in here. Jewfro might be watching!”

“Well, it’s time to exchange gifts,” Schue says, a little more uncertainly. “I guess Quinn drew your name, Kurt.”

“I suppose,” Kurt answers slowly, turning the package over in his hand.

“Why don’t you open it, then give your recipient his or her present?”

Kurt nods and quickly unwraps a gift certificate. He raises his eyebrows again and nods, without commenting. “I drew Rachel,” he says, pulling a medium-sized box from his bag and handing it to her with a smile.

“Thank you!” she says before even opening the gift, and then gasps a little. “How did you buy this for less than $15?”

“I’m an excellent shopper,” Kurt shrugs as Rachel lifts the sweater out of the box. It’s true, too; Puck had been impressed on Saturday when he was in and out of Forever 21 in less than ten minutes and spent only $12 in the process.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, putting it back in the box. “Now.” She picks up a brightly printed bag and hands it to Brittany, who pulls out two pairs of really long and colorful socks. Brittany seems pleased with them, though. She stands and pulls a huge hot dog cardboard cutout into the room and sets it in front of Finn without a word.

“Wow. That’s...a hotdog.”

“I thought it’d be great for your dorm room next year!” Brittany smiles.

“Ah, okay. Thanks.” Finn smiles and then hands a small box to Tina.

“Ooh, neat!” Tina exclaims as soon as she opens it, revealing a brooch with a skeltal profile. “This is so cool! Where’d you find it?”

“Etsy,” Finn shrugs. “Pretty much everything is on the internet.”

“That’s so true,” Tina nods agreeing with him. She picks up a small bag and then hands it to Puck with a smile.

Puck pulls out the tissue paper and then laughs at the contents. “Cool,” he says, grinning at Tina. “Thanks.”

“What is that?” Artie asks.

“It’s a Bear. A Chicago Bear,” Puck answers, picking up the small stuffed animal and holding him up. “Okay, Sam, your turn. I didn’t get you a Bieber poster, even though I was tempted to.”

“Thanks,” Sam snorts, taking the very small package from Puck and tearing into it. “Oh, cool! Earbuds with a Batman logo!” He grins and then tosses a bag at Santana, who pulls out a Bath and Body Works bag with small bottles.

“Artie,” she says, handing him another bag, which ends up containing a USC hat.

“Whoo!” Artie calls out, jamming it on his head immediately. “In the house. Mercedes,” he adds, rolling over and handing her a bag which reveals a Bath and Body Works bag strangely similar to the one Santana received.

Mercedes turns out to have Mike, who gets arguably one of the better, if not the best, gifts, a copy of _Green Day: Rock Band_. Mike’s recipient is clearly Quinn, and they leave the bag on the piano under Brad’s dubious eye.

“Before we sing some holiday music, I wanted to show you guys this,” Schue says, pressing a large sheet of paper to the wall. When he steps back, a calendar of the first four months of 2012 stares back at them. “I know we have a lot of auditions for some of you, so I thought we’d keep track here.” He draws a big star on the date for Regionals–March 10–and again on March 30. There are big letters proclaiming spring break and their Presidents’ Day break in February. “So if you can add your commitments here, both for rehearsal purposes and support purposes, after we finish here, and as you set them up, that’d be terrific.”

“Of course!” Rachel smiles at Mr. Schue. “We’d be happy to do so. Should we include what school or schools each audition is for?”

“Definitely,” Schue nods and returns her smile. “All right, who has a song for us today?”

“I have another song,” Kurt says, and no one else seems to notice that he’s almost coy. Puck bites down on his lower lip discreetly as Kurt stands up and strides to the center of the room. Santana was right; Kurt _owns_ the room, and he’s about to own whatever he’s going to sing.

Puck’s been more than a little turned on since Kurt first started unleashing his temper on Quinn, and when the first strains of the music start, he’s more or less reduced to thinking _at least the apartment is very, very close_.

Kurt smiles at the few looks of recognitions and begins to sing.

 _Santa Baby, slip a sable under the tree, For me.  
Been an awful good boy Santa baby,  
so hurry down the chimney tonight._

It is, as Kurt has said for the past few weeks whenever it comes on the radio, a stunning example of the materialism of the season.

 _Come and trim my Christmas tree,  
With some decorations bought at Tiffany's,  
I really do believe in you,  
Let's see if you believe in me,  
Santa baby, forgot to mention one little thing,  
A ring.  
I don't mean on the phone,  
Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight,  
Hurry down the chimney tonight,  
Hurry, tonight._

Kurt finishes with a little dip of the head, just the polite side of mocking, and takes his seat, a satisfied smile on his lips. Puck groans inwardly and wonders how he’s supposed to get through the song he intended to sing.

“Anyone else?” Schue looks around the room. “We have time for one more, I think.”

“Yeah, I got something,” Puck says at last, picking up his guitar and walking to the front of the room and settling on a stool.

 _So this is Christmas  
And what have you done  
Another year over  
A new one just begun  
And so this is Christmas  
I hope you have fun  
The near and the dear ones  
The old and the young_

When he reaches the chorus, Tina’s voice joins in softly.

 _A very merry Christmas  
And a happy New Year  
Let's hope it's a good one  
Without any fear_

Puck starts the next verse, and Finn picks up the repeating line of “war is over, if you want it, war is over now.”

 _And so this is Christmas  
For weak and for strong  
The rich and the poor ones  
The road is so long  
So happy Christmas  
For black and for white  
For yellow and red ones  
Let's stop all the fight_

Somewhere along the way, Rachel begins to sing as well, and their four voices combine for the final lines.

 _A very merry Christmas  
And a happy New Year  
Let's hope it's a good one  
Without any fear  
War is over, if you want it  
War is over now_

“Merry Christmas,” Finn says quietly as the last notes fade and they all begin to stand and gather their things.

“Merry Christmas” echoes from throughout the room, and Schue just stands at the whiteboard looking at them all proudly. One by one, they all either file out of the room or add their audition dates to the calendar Schue posted.

Mercedes and Brittany each write one date on the calendar, and Mike adds two before Rachel scribbles in several. Schue leaves then, and it’s just Puck and Kurt left in the room, so Puck steps directly behind Kurt as he writes down his three separate auditions for Marymount Manhattan, as well as the single audition for Pace. “Need you,” Puck grunts.

“Likewise,” Kurt breathes, stepping backward slightly and rocking his ass against Puck’s cock, which is rapidly asserting itself for the third time in an hour. “Write your auditions down, baby.” Kurt passes him the pen and Puck adds his two different sessions at Mannes.

“We can go now?” Puck asks, voice low.

“Yes, please,” Kurt squeezes his hand. “Your place, now.” When Kurt pivots to face Puck, Puck throws caution out the window and puts his mouth over Kurt’s. The kiss is insistent and Puck deepens it almost as soon as it begins, pressing Kurt against the newly-hung calendar. Kurt’s arms wrap around Puck’s neck and their bodies press tightly together. It’s not until their erections brush against each other twice in rapid succession that Puck admits they are in real danger of fucking in the choir room if they don’t get out of there while they can. He pulls away and heads out of the room rapidly, Kurt falling in step beside him as they walk quickly through the halls.

When they hit the doors and the parking lot, their speed increases, and Puck decides not to contemplate if they’re actually running by the time they reach the Nav and throw themselves inside. The drive from school to the apartment normally takes three minutes; Puck’s pretty sure Kurt makes it under two, and they take the stairs two at a time.

Puck’s shirt literally does fly across his room, and the rest of their clothes are flung about somewhat haphazardly before they’re kissing again, kissing and falling into the bed, awkwardly pulling blankets over them and twining their legs together. “Fuck me, baby,” Kurt gasps out as Puck suckles at his shoulder. “Please, fuck, inside me, _now_.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Puck agrees, fully aware that he’s babbling more than talking, and later he won’t be sure how he managed to procure the lube and use it. All he knows is that before a minute passes, he’s pushing himself slowly inside Kurt, who is arching his body towards Puck, all boneless limbs and high-pitched needy noises. Puck’s so hard just listening to Kurt and watching him that he has to stop for a long moment, resting inside Kurt, before he can start to move.

There’s nothing gentle about it once they start to move, hard thrusts and hands moving oh so quickly over Kurt’s cock. Puck’s fingers dig into Kurt’s hips, pulling Kurt towards him with each thrust, and Kurt clenches around Puck every time. They’re both crying out, loudly, and when they come, calling each other’s names, Puck spares a brief moment to be glad that none of his neighbors are typically home in the afternoon, because it might be embarrassing if they were.

He collapses against Kurt, spent and satiated, and then Kurt’s mouth is fitted over his once more. Kurt’s hand snakes between them and quicker than Puck thought possible, he’s hard again, aching for something, something more. Kurt’s hand disappears, and Puck whimpers. “Kurt, please,” he whines.

Then Kurt’s mouth closes over him and he jerks his hips upwards before he can stop them, crying out again as Kurt twists his tongue around Puck and sucks him deep into his mouth. It takes some careful movement but then Puck can just reach the tip of Kurt’s cock with his tongue, and Kurt shifts a final time. Puck slides his lips over Kurt and reaches for Kurt’s hand, holding it tightly as they move on each other. Puck comes first, Kurt sucking him dry before filling Puck’s mouth, and this time when they collapse under the covers, they simply wrap their arms around each other.

“Damn, K,” Puck says lazily.

“Mmm. A good damn, I hope.”

“The best,” Puck agrees. “We’re really good at sex, blue eyes.”

“There’s something to put on a resume,” Kurt giggles.

“I never said it was a marketable skill,” Puck concedes. “But it still makes us pretty damn awesome and a lot of other good adjectives.”

“I will acknowledge that fact.” Kurt rests his forehead against the side of Puck’s head. “We should eat lunch.”

“Yeah. I think there’s leftovers.”

“Good, I didn’t really want to get dressed yet.”

Cooking naked is, Puck’s always theoreticized, a bit of a risk, but microwaving? Not as much. He turns up the thermostat and that’s how they end up eating naked, Kurt curled up on Puck’s lap. They head back to Puck’s room and this time Kurt sits first, at the desk, pulling Puck to him. “I should check my email, I guess.”

“Yes,” Kurt says firmly. “Do it, baby.”

“Okay, okay.” Puck’s been avoiding his email since Friday, and Kurt knows it. If he doesn’t check it, he can pretend that he’s not about to get an email from MSM that says he’s not good enough, because it’s honestly what he expects. The email from MSM is there, though the timestamp is only a few hours earlier. “I can’t.”

“Yes you can.” Kurt presses his lips to Puck’s neck. “Click on it.” Puck takes a deep breath and screws his eyes shut as he clicks on it, then cracks one of them open. “Well?” Kurt demands.

“Dear Noah, Thank you for your interest and your application,” Puck murmurs as he reads. “After careful review of all submitted materials, we look forward to seeing you at...” He trails off. “Holy shit.”

He can definitely hear the grin in Kurt’s voice. “Told you so!”

“Are you gloating?”

“Absolutely.” Kurt pushes gently at his back. “Come on. Back to bed now, Puck.”

“Again?” Puck stands and walks over to the bed, raising his eyebrow at Kurt.

“Again,” Kurt says firmly. “We’ve still got hours yet.”

“Remember how I said we were really good at sex?”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to revise that statement by making it stronger.”

 

Kurt absently walks up the stairs, taking each step slowly and in no particular hurry. He passes by Finn’s room and raises his hand in an approximation of a wave before continuing to his room and lying down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

After half a minute, there’s Finn in Kurt’s doorway. “You ok, man? You look weird.”

“Hmm?” Kurt turns his head towards Finn. “Hey.”

“Are you...are you _high_?” Finn whispers. “‘cause you look high.”

Kurt giggles. “No.” He props himself up slightly. “I promise I have consumed no illicit substances.”

“Did you hit your head or something?” Finn’s face is twisted up into a comical mix of dubiousness and concern.

Kurt’s laughter intensifies and he shakes his head. “No! I’m fine, really.” He looks at Finn and does his best to look clear-headed as he smiles. “See? Fine!”

“Mmhmm,” Finn mutters. “If you say so, though I wouldn’t eat any more baked goods at Puck’s if I were you. ‘cause you seriously look stoned. Anyway, so what was that thing from Quinn?”

“I didn’t eat any baked goods,” Kurt protests, crossing his fingers over his chest in an approximation of the grade-school gesture. “And it was a gift certificate to that mani/pedi place up on Elida.”

“Like, to get your fingernails painted?” Finn shakes his head. “Ok, what is _with_ her? Seriously, I don’t even know.”

Kurt shrugs. “I have no idea. Maybe she’s bipolar. Or maybe,” he draws out the word into several syllables. “She’s just a bitch.”

“She wasn’t always that you know,” Finn says. “I mean, she was always _bitchy_ a little, but not like she’s been lately. I dunno. Sometimes, it’s like...like I can see what my possible future would have been? If I’d stayed with her. And it’s scary.”

“God, yes.” Kurt shudders a little. “For all of us.” He sighs a little. “I suppose I should have been more diplomatic but.”

“Do you guys ever, you know,” Finn makes some meaningless little gesture with his hands. “Talk about her? It seems like maybe you do.”

Kurt bites his lip and looks off to the side, considering how much to say, and nods. “There’s. It’s not my story to tell, but. There’s limited contact.”

Finn’s face goes blank and he cocks his head. “Contact with who?”

Kurt’s gaze is still fixed to the side, not noticing Finn’s expression change. “God, don’t say I said anything. I shouldn’t have said anything, it’s technically not my business, right? But you know we saw her in Columbus on the day after Thanksgiving, and Mercedes and I had to move the girls fast.”

“What? Saw her who? Are we talking about lots of different hers now?” Finn looks distressed. “Kurt, I’m really confused.”

“Shelby!” Kurt hisses. “Could you imagine the clusterfuck if Quinn and Rachel both had seen her?”

“Oh. _Oh!_ Yeah that would have been bad,” Finn nods. “Wait, so we’re talking about Shelby now? I thought we were talking about Quinn. Contact with Shelb...oh.” Finn’s face pales slightly, and he snaps his mouth closed. His eyes widen.

“Oh shit!” Kurt’s eyes widen and he looks at Finn. “I didn’t tell you that!”

Finn shakes his head, eyes still huge, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Dammit,” Kurt mutters to himself. “Stupid fucking head in the clouds.”

“You said limited contact,” Finn says, pitching his voice low and soft. “Puck talks to her?”

“Emails,” Kurt admits. “He and Shelby email periodically. Pictures. That’s all.”

“Oh, wow.”

“It makes it easier, I think,” Kurt says slowly. “Knowing the little details and all?”

“Is it weird? For you, I mean,” Finn asks, his eyes searching Kurt’s face.

“It is exactly what it is,” Kurt states practically. “There’s not really any handbook or how-to, though.” He smiles a little wryly. “But if you’re asking if that’s part of the reason Quinn and I have clashed so much, oh, yes, I’m sure of that.”

Finn nods. “Yeah, that’s...complicated. I’m sorry if I was asking questions you didn’t wanna answer or something.”

“It’s fine,” Kurt assures him. “It _is_ weird in the sense of knowing things that everyone else doesn’t, you know? Like. Shelby bought her a kitten. It’s mundane and not all significant, but. Beth has a kitten named George.”

A brief, shocked expression crosses Finn’s face. “You said her name. I don’t know why, but that just seems. It’s just really weird.”

“Because no one talks about her. Puck’s the only one who referred to her by name, and now it’s like the first rule of glee club: no one talks about Beth.”

“Quinn never mentioned her. Not even once. She didn’t even, like, talk _around_ her,” Finn says. “I tried to bring it up once, you know? Because I was worried about her. She shut me down like a bear trap.”

“I can imagine so.” Kurt picks at the duvet cover and frowns. “Charitably? Different people deal with grief in different ways.”

“And uncharitably?”

“To all appearances, Quinn would like to erase that year and anything to do with it from her memory, permanently.”

Finn nods. “Yeah, I’d say that’s probably true. Which, you know, considering she’s not the only one who was living it...”

“She’ll just run away from it, instead,” Kurt finishes.

“That was a fucked up year.”

Kurt snorts. “They all are, just in different ways.”

Finn shrugs. “Well, there’s fucked up and then there’s _fucked up_.” He laughs a little.

“And now that we’ve done ‘Unexpected Revelations’ for $1000, what’s your next category?” Kurt asks, smirking a little.

“Why did Brittany buy me a giant cut out of a hot dog?”

Kurt laughs. “I have no earthly idea. It’s Brittany. Maybe she really did think it was a good dorm room decoration.”

“So, it’s not some kind of statement? About me or anything?”

“If Santana had bought it? Yes, it would be. Brittany? Not a chance.”

“If Santana had bought it, it would...you know, I can’t even go there, dude,” Finn grins.

“Good decision,” Kurt remarks. “You chose wisely.”

Finn flings himself backward onto Kurt’s bed. “Why are women so confusing? Even the lesbian ones!”

“Because we already had the market cornered on stupid.”

“Hey, at least I’m easy to understand!”

“Oh?” Kurt grins. “Explain.”

“No cardboard hot dogs, no babies I pretend I didn’t have. I’m a simple guy,” Finn says, putting his hand behind his head and looking up the ceiling in a self-satisfied way. “Hard to get simpler than me.”

“So there are no stray thoughts rattling around in there?” Kurt jokes.

“Nope. Hollow like a chocolate Easter bunny in there.”

“Good to know.”

“How ‘bout you? Chocolate Easter bunny?”

“I have thoughts,” Kurt protests. “They may not be of any great _substance_ , mind you.”

Finn flips over onto his side. “Well now you _have_ to tell them, with a lead in like that.”

“I’m an eighteen year old boy, Finn. What do you _think_ they’re about?”

“I don’t know, dude. Lady Gaga and manicures?” Finn says, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t realize those thoughts counted. I have a billion of those. Not Lady Gaga, I mean. The stuff you’re really talking about.”

Kurt stifles a laugh. “I didn’t imagine you to spend brainpower on Lady Gaga, no.”

“With that stupid Valentine’s dance, you’d be amazed how much time I have to think about Lady Gaga lately.”

“Ooh, that’s right.” Kurt grins wickedly. “I’m so glad I don’t have to think about that on top of everything else.”

“I know. It’s cutting in on my other eighteen year old boy thoughts time,” Finn grumbles.

“There’s a set time for those? I’ve been doing it wrong, then,” Kurt says dryly.

“Used to be ‘all waking hours’ but now it’s like, ‘whenever I can fit it in between rehearsals and football and red lace all over the place for this dance.’”

“The trials and tribulations of the American teenager,” Kurt nods, then suddenly purses his lips as a thought comes to him. “More serious question.”

“Uh oh. Serious questions melt the chocolate bunny, dude.”

“I think Carole made more gingerbread, so you can replace the bunny with gingerbread. Or something.” Kurt shakes his head. “I’m confusing myself now. Anyway. Puck. The... throwing up thing.”

“Oh, Puck’s upset-puking? Yeah, he’s kinda always done that. Well, not always always. For a long time though.”

“How often?”

“I dunno. Not all the time. Just when he’s really upset about stuff.” Finn shrugs. “I don’t keep track or anything. It’s just a thing he does.”

“It’s not...” Kurt sighs a little. “It’s not good. I hate the word normal, but it’s not.”

‘No? It seemed pretty normal for Puck. I mean, after a while. I don’t think he ever really did it before, you know, his dad, but I dunno.”

“Just because it’s become usual doesn’t mean it’s... I don’t know. I don’t even know where to start, but it just feels... off.”

“Did you Google it? Oh, or you can look on WebMD,” Finn suggests.

“I did. A lot of the hits talk about how children will make themselves throw up just to get attention, so it should be ignored. It’s hard to find anything on teenagers or adults.”

“I don’t think I could ever throw up just to get attention,” Finn says, making a face. “That sounds weird. I don’t think people really do that. Anyway, Puck never did that. He didn’t want people to know he was doing it.”

“I know,” Kurt murmurs quietly. “I just...” He shrugs. “I guess I’ll keep digging, when I get a chance.”

“Well, just, uh, let me know if I can do anything, I guess,” Finn offers. “I mean, I never really thought too much about it, since he’s always done it, but if you say it’s not right, then...”

“You think that what happened at Sectionals is normal?”

“Dude, I don’t think anything of what happened at Sectionals was normal,” Finn protests. “I just didn’t think Puck was the least normal thing there.”

Kurt snorts. “Well, that’s probably true.”

“So, yeah, maybe it’s not normal to throw up when you get really upset,” Finn says, with a shrug. “But you know, that’s how he coped with things. He didn’t really have anybody to help him and maybe that way he got over being stressed out quick?”

“Maybe,” Kurt agrees verbally, but his voice is still uncertain.

“And then there’s Mrs. P,” Finn says, sounding more thoughtful. “I mean, things were always so _weird_ around there. My mom always said it was no wonder that Puck was so high strung.”

“And that’s another thing,” Kurt nods. “Look, I know you don’t want details, but there’s a... restlessness about Puck, sometimes. And I can get rid of it for awhile. But it always comes back.”

Finn nods slowly. “Yeah,” he says. “I know what you’re talking about. Back in freshman, sophomore year? Sometimes he’d just get this look, you know? And that’s when we’d go do crazy stuff like...” Finn trails off and he looks at Kurt uncomfortably.

“Nail my lawn furniture to the roof?” Kurt asks dryly. “Which actually would have been amusing if we’d had a way to get to it easily.”

“Yeah, stuff like that. Which, you know I’m sorry about all of that, right?”

“I had assumed,” Kurt deadpans.

“But...you know, man, now that you’re talking about it,” Finn says. “He’s kind of been doing it a lot more lately.”

“He’s under a lot of stress. Just.” Kurt sighs. “The kind of people also applying to places like Mannes? A lot of them have years of private instruction from professionals, coursework at school that supports their music, things I can’t even imagine.”

“No, it started before then. With the thing with Jojo. I noticed him doing it more then.”

Kurt nods. “I know. It just keeps piling on.”

“That sucks,” Finn sighs. “I mean, we’ve all got a lot of shit on us right now, but we’ve got mom and Burt and each other. Puck’s just got you. Well, and me. And you and me, we are pretty awesome, but it’s still not the same.”

“No, and meanwhile, he’s still doing more for Hannah than most brothers would be doing.”

“He’s better at the parent thing than his mom ever was,” Finn says, a little bitterly. “And that just kinda goes right back to the first part of our conversation, and now I’m kinda pissed off at Quinn all over again. What the hell?”

Kurt snorts. “We’re talking ourselves in circles. I’m sure that’s some kind of achievement.”

“I dunno. I just feel dizzy and confused.”

“Like a whirlpool it never ends.”

“Truth.”

 

Puck smirks at Rachel and exaggeratedly draws a line with his foot on the floor between their two desks when he gets into English on Tuesday morning. “Don’t cross the line,” he admonishes.

Rachel laughs. “Yes, we must observe _proper personal space_ ,” she agrees.

Puck hasn’t dwelt on it because it’s just the most ridiculous thing. Sure, it’s not like everyone at school knows that he’s _in_ a relationship, thank you very much, or that he’s gay, but seriously? He and Rachel dated for maybe three days, and then made out for about twenty minutes a year later, before he came to his senses. And all anybody needs to do is watch Finn and Rachel together for about five minutes before they realize it’s pretty stupid from that angle, too.

Their English teacher sticks in the Keira Knightley version of _Pride & Prejudice_ instead of teaching them, and Puck leans back in his chair, thinking. He runs his hand over his mohawk and frowns. Auditions. Interviews. What is it they always say? Make a good first impression.

Yeah, he was right when he was at the college fair back in October. The mohawk’s going to have to go. It’s not like he hasn’t known that, at least in the back of his mind, for awhile. Back in the summer, he even half-expected Kurt to try and get him to shave it off, but Kurt’s not quite as predictable as people might think.

When the bell rings, Rachel traces an exaggerated circle in the air with her finger and gestures for him to do the same. “Let’s walk now, safe in our personal bubbles.”

“Right,” Puck snorts. He digs through his backpack and when they reach the choir room, he adds the exam and the interview for MSM to Schue’s calendar, then throws the pen back his backpack.

“More auditions?” Mike asks he walks in.

“MSM does this pre-screening thing, whether or not they waste their time listening to your interview. They didn’t send out emails until yesterday,” Puck explains with a shrug.

“Ouch, yeah, that’s a long wait,” Mike agrees. He looks at the calendar more closely. “You have to take an exam?”

“Yeah, on music theory and a bunch of other shit. It’s instead of playing prepared pieces like the instrument and voice majors, I guess.”

“Oh, right.” He shrugs. “We need to have a support group for the five of us. Go out drinking once a week or something.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, we really should.”

“Hey, I need a support group, too!” Finn says. “You have no idea how stressful it is, all this _waiting_! At least you have stuff to work on.”

“Yeah, your waiting is done in a few weeks, dude,” Puck snorts. “I don’t think you’ll want to be in my shoes in late March.”

“I don’t want to be in your shoes ever,” Finn says, deadpan. “Your shoes are way, way too small for me.”

“Good, at least _you_ won’t steal my shoes.”

“My own shoes are just fine, dude.”

“Not really,” Kurt says as he walks in. “Your shoes are plain, and also smelly.”

“They aren’t smelly,” Finn pouts. “I put them through the washing machine when they get smelly.”

“And then you put them in the George Foreman, which is why the first rule of the kitchen is _never use the small George Foreman_.”

“That was sophomore year,” Finn protests. “Anybody would make that mistake.”

“Not really,” Puck disagrees. “But at least everyone knows about your George Foreman now.”

“Yeah well, moving right along,” Finn says, rolling his eyes. “ _Any_ new ideas for a third song? Any at all?”

“I made the mistake of mentioning it before I left the house this morning, and Dad tried to make me take his Mellencamp’s greatest hits CD,” Kurt says dryly.

“Where’s Quinn?” Brittany suddenly interjects, looking worried. “She’s always here by now and she’s not here. Maybe she was kidnapped!”

“She’s probably just off sulking for the day,” Sam offers with a shrug.

“Well, let her sulk, then,” Finn says, making a grumpy face. “We can do this without her.”

“A crack in the wall of unity?” Santana cracks, sardonically.

“Hey, some people are more necessary than others,” Finn snaps.

“Some animals are more equal than others,” Kurt nods. “So, Comrade Finn.”

“Yeah, Snowball?”

“I think we’re all out of ideas.”

“Dammit,” Finn mutters under his breath. “Ok,” he sighs. “Ok, we’ll run through what we’ve got and we’ll just take the holidays to figure it out. Next time we meet, we’ll put something on the table and just start working on it. I don’t even care what it is at that point, we just have to have something.”

“Does that mean we can leave?” Mercedes asks just a little too brightly, and Puck snorts when he sees an similar expression on Sam’s face.

“Uh, no. That’s why I said ‘we’ll run through what we’ve got,’” Finn says, glaring at Mercedes and then at Sam. “I’ve got my eye on you,” he says to Sam, pointing at him.

“I didn’t say anything!” Sam protests, but doesn’t argue further when Finn keeps glaring at him.

They do run through both of the selected songs twice before Finn tells them to get out of there, because it’s time for the PFLAG meeting/holiday party.

Puck picks up the boxes of jelly doughnuts he brought and follows Kurt down the hall. “Watch, we’re going to have a ton of people, all of them wanting my jelly doughnuts.”

“That sounds really dirty,” Kurt muses. “Please refrain from causing me to think inappropriate thoughts.”

“They aren’t inappropriate, just ill-timed.”

When they reach the classroom, Casey and Karofsky are already present, talking in low tones, Casey hopping excitedly (if quietly) in his seat. “Hey,” Karofsky nods at them. Casey just waves enthusiastically with both hands.

“S’up,” Puck nods back.

“Hello,” Kurt says, setting down the panettone he brought.

“Hi guys!” Casey chirrups. “Happy almost-Christmas! Or almost-Hanukkah!”

“Presents tonight,” Puck agrees, nodding.

It doesn’t take long for everyone to pour into the room, pushing and double-stacking their food on the two tables against the wall, but it takes a little longer for everyone to settle into their seats. Puck settles himself between Kurt and Rachel and throws a smirk at Rachel as he puts his arms behind both of them. She laughs and elbows him in the side. “You’re so bad.”

“Best thing I ever had,” Puck nods.

“Okay, let’s get started,” Kurt calls out finally. “We’ll just go around and do our introductions and then party.” He smiles brightly. “I’m Kurt, I’m a senior, and I’ve been told that I am flamboyantly gay.” He smirks at the scattered laughter and then looks at Puck.

“Puck.” He nods. “I’m here for the panettone. Really.”

“I’m Rachel and I’m a straight ally.” Rachel beams. “And I’m so pleased to see some traditional Jewish food here as well.”

“Jelly doughnuts represent,” Puck cracks.

“I’m Finn and I’m here because Kurt’s gonna withhold my Christmas presents otherwise,” Finn says, grinning. “Also, I’m the bouncer, so nobody get too wild at the party, or I’ll throw you out on your...”

“Ass!” Puck supplies.

“Yes, Puck. Thank you.” Finn rolls his eyes.

After a few more people have introduced themselves, they get around to Rickenbacker, who makes a little joke about hearing that McKinley’s gays throw the best Christmas party. He looks anxious when he cracks the joke, but relaxes when everyone, including Kurt, laughs.

“It’s true,” Kurt says. “We know how to make a party good.”

Brown’s next to Rick, as usual, but he just says his name and nods before the introductions continue around the circle and eventually come to Casey.

“Hey everybody!” Casey says, with his frenetic wave. “I’m Casey, and I’m here because I’m gay, and I’m also here because I want to offer my support to a friend.” He grins and most of the room can’t help but smile back at him. “Which is pretty awesome, because everybody here has been so supportive of _me_ and I just want to be able to pass it on.”

Karofsky’s next to him, which has become the usual set-up. “Hi, uh. I’m Dave Karofsky and I’m a senior. And, uh.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m here because I’m gay.”

Casey grabs Karofsky by the arm and kind of _clings_ to it, beaming, almost vibrating with visible pride. Puck stifles a grin at Casey’s enthusiasm and does his best to appear at least somewhat surprised at Karofsky’s revelation.

The room is relatively quiet, and Puck looks over at Rachel to see her jaw drop as she stares dumbfounded at Karofsky. Most of the glee club looks similar, but Santana is smiling with what almost seems like smug pride. Rickenbacker looks shocked and immediately starts glancing around the room at the handful of other football players in attendance, though whether it’s because he’s gauging their reactions or double-checking if they’re still straight or not, Puck can’t tell.

“Well don’t everyone talk at once,” Dave snorts.

“Well, I’m super proud of you, David,” Casey says, his voice high-pitched enough that’s it’s almost a delighted squeak.

“I’m sure everyone’s just surprised,” Kurt says smoothly. “But of course no one’s going to talk about it outside of this room, _right_?” Kurt glares around the room, and it doesn’t escape Puck’s notice that his gaze lingers on Mercedes for a split-second longer than everyone else. It’s true; Mercedes is the weak link when it comes to gossip.

“Right!” Casey answers, also glaring, though ineffectually, at everyone.

They continue around the circle with introductions, but no one seems to be paying much attention to them. “Well, I think that takes care of the formal portion of the meeting,” Kurt says. “Don’t forget we’ll have a meeting on our first day back in 2012. Eat!”

“Score!” Puck leaps up and grabs a plate.

“So, Karofsky,” Finn says to Puck, quietly. “Didn’t peg him for the type who would come out while he’s still at school, but hey, I say good for him!”

“In here and out there are still two different things,” Puck shrugs.

“Still, I think that’s pretty awesome,” Finn says. “And ok, Casey? That was kind of...”

“Adorable?”

“Totally!” Finn nods. “They’re, like, gay David and Goliath. Only I guess without the rocks being thrown at people.”

“Yeah, let’s skip the rocks,” Puck agrees, finishing filling his plate and leaning against the wall, observing the room. Santana has crossed the room and claimed the seat on the other side of Karofsky, gesturing and occasionally punching Karofsky’s bicep. Casey flaps his hands excitedly, looking like a hyperactive butterfly fluttering around Karofsky.

“Exciting meeting,” Finn says, stuffing half a jelly doughnut into his mouth.

“It has food and an unexpected reveal, what’s not to like?” Puck shrugs and takes a bite of some kind of strange sandwich Ms. Pillsbury brought.

“Ew, what’s in this?” Finn says, picking up one of the sandwiches. “Is that just...butter? With, like, plants in it? Wait, cucumber?” He shrugs and takes a bite anyway.

Puck makes a face but takes another bite. “Whatever. It tastes pretty good.”

“It tastes like...garden.”

“As long as it doesn’t taste like pink, I guess.”

“You remember that?” Finn asks, raising his eyebrows. “I thought you were pretty far gone. _Everybody_ was pretty far gone, come to think of it. Well, not me. Or Kurt.”

“It’s more fun not to be as far gone as everyone thinks you are,” Puck grins. “It’s not that hard to act more drunk than you actually are.”

Finn shakes his head. “Well, ok, then. I’m always the DD, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Now we have a goal for Santana’s party. No driving necessary afterwards!” Puck laughs. “Go calm your girlfriend down, I think Karofsky’s revelation might have broken her.”

Finn laughs and goes over to Rachel. As soon as Finn steps away, Ms. Pillsbury walks over. “Noah, why don’t you go ahead and take the afternoon off? There’s no need for you to stay today, none of the teachers are really teaching,” she giggles slightly.

“Okay,” Puck shrugs and tries not to grin, because taking the afternoon off means he can leave with Kurt as soon as the party’s over. He refills his plate and wanders over to where Kurt is talking with Rick and one of the female underclassmen.

 

“You look freaked out, Rach,” Finn says, slipping his arm around his girlfriend. “It’s not that big a deal. I mean, people are turning up gay, like, all the time around here.”

“It’s just that. If someone like _Karofsky_ can come out, maybe the world really is changing.”

Finn’s ears perk up (not literally, because people ears don’t work that way) when Rachel says that, because first of all, she’s smart, and secondly, she totally just made him think of something.

“That’s great, Rachel, can you hang on just a second?” Finn says, pulling out his phone. He quickly types a message to the whole club.

 _Song idea. Meet back in choir room after pflag._

 

Puck frowns a little at the text message but follows the rest of them back down to the choir room as people claim their leftover food. Ms. Pillsbury announces that she doesn’t need the rest of her sandwiches and anyone can take them, so Puck claims them with a shrug and stacks the tray on top of the remaining box of doughnuts.

“Leave it to my brother to be inspired during PFLAG,” Kurt says with a shake of his head and a little smile. “Are those Ms. P’s sandwiches?”

“Yeah, want one?”

“Yes, thank you,” Kurt grins and takes one as they walk in.

“Okay, what’s the idea sir, dictator, sir?” Puck jokes.

Finn doesn’t answer, but dramatically pulls out his iPhone and presses a button to start a song. Puck recognizes the song as soon as the first notes start to play.

 _Me and all my friends  
We're all misunderstood  
They say we stand for nothing and  
There's no way we ever could_

Puck nods a little; it could work, and it definitely fits well with “Marchin’ On.”

 _And we're still waiting  
Waiting on the world to change  
We keep on waiting waiting on the world to change  
One day our generation  
Is gonna rule the population  
So we keep on waiting  
Waiting on the world to change _

_We keep on waiting  
Waiting on the world to change_

As the song ends, Finn stands up again and says, “So? What do you think? Doable?”

“I want one of the verses,” Santana announces.

“Is that John Mayer?” Rachel questions.

“Yeah, it is,” Puck answers for Finn. “I like it.”

“I like it, too,” Artie says. “I think it’s a little political, though. Aren’t you worried that’ll put the judges off?”

“I think one verse shouldn’t be too problematic,” Kurt answers diplomatically. “I mean, in context, it won’t be a large part of the set.”

“Ok,” Artie says, “if you think it won’t be an issue.”

“Of course it won’t,” Finn says, bracingly, with a pat to the handle of Artie’s chair. Luckily, Artie seems to have his brakes on, or they’d have to stop him from barrelling into the drum set.


	4. Morale (a 3x14 bonus fic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foot-in-mouth, boosting morale, the list of stuff you're not supposed to ask about

After filling his plate, Miles elbows Rick. “Let’s go over there,” he suggests, tilting his head towards where Karofsky is standing, Casey still nearby.

“What? You think he feels like talking to us right now?” Rick looks dubious. “I don’t know how this stuff works, Brown.”

“We got his back, right? So we let him know that.”

“If you think so. I don’t know. He looks occupied or somethin’.” Rick crams the rest of his jelly doughnut into his mouth. “Don’t want him to think we’re weirded out, I guess,” he says, spraying crumbs.

“Don’t think he woke up straight yesterday and gay today,” Miles jokes. He leads Rick in the direction of Karofsky, and Casey looks over at them with wide eyes, like he’s not sure why they’re coming over there at all.

“Shut up, I know that,” Rick mutters. “Asshole.”

“Hey, man.” Miles offers his fist to Karofsky, who completes the gesture, before turning to Casey. Casey hesitantly touches his knuckles to Miles’, more of a graze really. Miles elbows Rick when he realizes Rick is still just standing there.

“Ow, man! Cut it out,” Rick says, but he puts his fist up and bumps all around. “So, uh. How’s being gay treating you?”

“Rick, man, you suck at this,” Miles says frankly, shaking his head. “Ignore him, Karofsky. Boy’s got a case of two feet in his mouth.”

“What? I’m just letting him know I’m cool with it?” Rick says, looking a little hurt. Karofsky chuckles and little Casey about doubles over with giggles.

“Everyone has their, uh, own ways of being supportive,” Karofsky finally says.

“Or being ridiculous,” Miles finishes, shaking his head.

“I’m _trying_ , alright?” Rick frowns. “They should have a PFLAG meeting on it or something, so I know what I’m supposed to say.”

“Just don’t ask if they like to wear high heels,” Casey says, very serious, but with a little twitch at the corner of his mouth like he’s working hard to not laugh. “We don’t like that. Being asked. I mean, maybe some of us like wearing them. I don’t know. I don’t. Wear high heels.”

“Oh, okay, cool,” Rick says, nodding, like he’s taking notes.

“Or women’s underwear,” Karofsky deadpans.

Miles snorts. “Yeah, man, that’s a good one!”

“I don’t even like Cher,” Casey adds. “So probably that shouldn’t be on the list, either. No Cher.”

Rick seems to finally get that he’s being messed with. “Ha ha, you guys. Real funny.”

“Also the leather, man,” Miles grins. “I don’t think there’s a leather strap hidden under Casey’s shirt.”

“No! There totally _is_!” Casey chirps. “Like. Like _five_ of them. With spikes.” He giggles again.

“That would explain a lot!” Miles offers his fist to Casey again. Casey bumps it with considerably more gusto and looks pleased with himself.

“Karofsky, I don’t even know about these guys,” Rick says, shaking his head. “I think it’s cool you’re all, I dunno. Cool about everything. I’m just trying to say we’ve got your back, dude. Right, Brown?”

“Right, man.” Miles grins and shakes his head a little, looking between Casey and Karofsky for a second. Well, that could explain a few things. Maybe. Who can tell?

“Did you have the borscht? That’s the light red soup,” Casey says, rocking back on his heels and bouncing forward onto his toes again. “David made that! It’s really good!” He gives Karofsky some kind of Japanese schoolgirl grin and giggle combo that’s a little weird, but sort of adorable.

“Oh, the pink stuff?” Miles asks, smirking, because really, light red? Totally pink.

“It’s beets. Beets are red,” Karofsky insists, shaking his head ruefully.

“Yeah, but right now, it looks pink.”

“No, it’s light red,” Casey says, firmly. “And it’s really good. You should try some.”

“Yeah, I think I’m allergic to beets,” Rick answers. “So, uh. You have an extra bowl for me, cool?” Casey appears to think it over for a moment, then he nods, like Rick’s answer is acceptable.

“It’s not veg-a-whatever like Hudson’s girl is always going on about, is it?” Miles asks, because that would sort of suck. No meat. No milk. No eggs. What kind of eating life is that?

“Hell, no,” Karofsky assures him. “It’s a family recipe, so lots of cream and stuff.”

“I think life without meat is sort of suspicious,” Miles declares.

“I like meat!” Casey says, fiercely, and then his face goes all pink.

“Yeah, we kinda got that,” Miles says with a nod and a little smile.

Karofsky rolls his eyes and levels a gaze that’s almost–but not quite–a glare at Miles, who just shrugs and lets his grin get wider. Casey turns kind of borscht-red and giggles even harder.

“Brown!” Rick says. “I’m not allowed to ask Karofsky how he’s doing with the gay thing, but you’re gonna go on about meat? Seriously, man. Come on!”

“Rick, my man, the thing is? I’m cooler than you. Can’t be helped.”

“Shit, that’s true,” Rick concedes.

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine,” Casey squeaks, still laughing. “It’s okay to like meat at PFLAG. Or anywhere. Only, I meant actual meat. Like sandwiches.”

“Case, pretty sure peanut butter isn’t meat,” Karofsky says, clearly teasing Casey.

“Shows what you know. I had to kill those peanuts myself. It was traumatic,” Casey grins back at Karofsky. “Really! I cried!”

Karofsky snorts and laughs. “Yeah, I bet.”

“I would never lie to you,” Casey says, with a serious shake of his head. “Traumatic.”

“Yeah, it’d be traumatic if you did,” Miles laughs. “Karofsky’d make you eat more peanut butter that you killed yourself, or something.”

“Well, David _does_ say all the time I should eat more, so that’s probably true.” Casey makes a thoughtful face, like he’s considering the possibility of being force-fed peanut butter by Karofsky, and maybe not hating the idea.

“Yeah, you need to eat just as much as him, I bet!” Miles grins.

“But where would he put it?” Rick asks.

“Weren’t you here that week? Though it sucked there wasn’t any free lube to go with the free condoms.”

“Brown!”

Casey squeaks and his eyes and mouth both go into shocked little circles. Miles can’t help thinking that, well, damn, _there_ he can put it, but he figures that might make Casey stroke out or something. Or maybe Rick, too. Sophomores.

“It’s a legit complaint!” he finally settles on. “Condoms but no lube. Saying it’s too expensive.”

“ _Brown_!” Rick says again, though he looks like he wants to laugh at the expression on Casey’s face.

“I think it’s too bad you don’t use these jokes on the field,” Karofsky says with a shake of his head. “Coach would appreciate them, don’t you think?”

“Nothin’ wrong with a little humor,” Miles defends.

“What do you think, Rick?” Karofsky raises one eyebrow. “You think Coach will sign him up as morale officer?”

“Yeah, bet that’d go over great,” Rick snorts. “I feel my morale improving already.”

“See, I’m damn good at it.”

“I think he’s funny,” Casey says. “But I don’t play football.”

“A good morale officer includes the fans,” Miles asserts. “And if that wasn’t part of the job description, well. It is now.”

“God help us all,” Rick sighs.


End file.
